The Quality Department at Simons Halal Food is dedicated to maintaining our high standards of food quality and safety, following strict guidelines like those set by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and International Food Standard (IFS). This department ensures that Simons Halal Food's quality standards are consistently applied throughout the company.
It includes Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) teams, which monitor every stage of production and the entire customer experience. Every day, the department carries out various tasks to make sure that no product leaves the factory unless it meets our top quality and safety standards. Some of these daily tasks include:
Production-based sampling: essential for continuous monitoring of product quality.
Monitoring deviations in production: to intervene quickly in case of quality problems.
Monitoring the quality plan: to ensure that all processes follow the established quality standards.
Performing cleaning verifications: to ensure hygiene within the production environment.
Managing CCPs: crucial for controlling food safety at critical control points.
Implementation of HACCP studies: quality systems to identify, assess and control food safety risks within the food production and distribution processes to ensure food safety).
In addition to these tasks, the department does much more to guarantee our food safety. They carry out internal and external audits. They provide training for colleagues and are the point of contact for external parties or suppliers when it comes to quality and food safety.
Among the standard quality controls, Simons Halal Food goes the extra mile. As the only products in Benelux, the in-house DNA laboratory has a QPCR tower that allows the department to examine raw materials and finished products for genetic compositions and possible contaminations. This not only ensures accuracy, but also enables the department to proudly obtain BCR or IVF certificates every year.
Besides maintaining the highest quality, the Quality Department also actively focuses on promoting continuous improvement and outlining long-term goals. Simons Halal Food never stands still and thanks to the efforts of the Quality Department, operational controls are combined with a continuous search for improvements for the best quality.
In a fast-paced food industry, the Quality Department is often challenged to find the right balance between the various departments. For one thing, it is important to deliver the best quality but it is also important to produce everything on time from large quantities of halal meat.
The manager is proud of the current team and especially emphasises the intrinsic motivation of all other departments:
What the department manager is most proud of is the intrinsic motivation among all the staff. Despite tight deadlines and the highest quality standards, the team all strive to meet them at all times.
At Simons Halal Food, this balance is maintained through an open door policy, where anyone from the company can walk straight into the Quality Department to discuss concerns and exchange ideas. This creates an open and familiar culture but also a common goal towards the best possible quality, which is something the department head is very proud of!
— This year, we are taking a look behind the scenes at Simons Halal Food. Regularly, we will write about the various departments and the work within the entire process. We will let the employees have their say and let them tell us about their work. The Quality Department is part 2 of the series.
