Economic Benefits of GCSE-Food & Health Protection SSQA Programs

To Consumers:

If you could have sustained confidence in your safety and satisfaction from the products you purchase, would you be interested? What if the possible financial, health and other costs to you of unsafe and poor quality products were actually reduced, would you be interested? What if the operators could afford to better maintain good safety and quality standards in providing the products that you buy due to the reduced systems management cost burdens on them, would this be of interest to you?

To Operators:

If your food safety programs could be made effective at the same time that your consulting and auditing costs were reduced by up to 50%, would you be interested? What if these and other costs could be reduced even further as your product safety and quality systems gained increasing effectiveness over time, would you be interested in finding out how?

To Customers:

If you have corporate or company purchasing responsibilities and you could participate in this program to benefit from the suppliers’ reduced costs, would you be interested?

To Audit Scheme, Auditing, and Consulting Services Providers:

If you are currently a reputable product safety and quality systems audit scheme, auditing and/or consulting services provider and you could be qualified and given the opportunity to provide SSQA Facilitation services, would you be interested? What if your continuing good reputation and service excellence were the only on-going requirements without other unnecessary impositions, would you be interested?

To Auditors:

If you are currently an experienced product safety and quality systems auditor and you could be qualified and given the opportunity to work as an SSQA Facilitator, would you be interested? What if your acquired experience and continuing practical demonstration of competence were the only on-going requirement, would you be interested?

To Regulatory Agencies and Inspectors:

If your activities were only seen as complementing rather than punitive and antagonizing to the industry, would you be interested? What if administrative costs and your stress levels were to be reduced due to the voluntary, effective and consistent self-monitoring strategies adopted by operators under the SSQA program, would this be of interest to you?

The GCSE-FHP Safety and Security Quality Assurance (SSQA) and other GCSE-FHP  programs provide opportunities and strategies with these kinds of economic, systems effectiveness and related benefits:

A New Version of the Membership Guide

Dear GCSE-FHP Member,
.

Version 3 of the GCSE-Food & Health Protection Membership Guide is now available for download. Further clarification about membership and certificate expiration has been added on page 4 under Membership Certification. In keeping with the free membership commitment of the campaign, it has been clarified that membership does not expire. However, for administrative purposes, the membership certificates have expiration dates.

The criteria for receiving awards of merit on page 10 have also been revised. It is no longer mandatory for nominees to be enlisted in a recognized third party assessment or audit program. However, any organisation that has voluntarily or otherwise recalled a product shall not qualify for an award until after two recall-free years following a recall incident.

As the countries and our members have increased in number, we are encouraging members to frequently visit the “UPDATES” page of the web site to keep up with these kinds of updates and notices.

You may download the new version 3 via the link below or visit the campaign website to download a copy. As always, your continuing participation in GCSE-Food & Health Protection is very much appreciated.

Membership Guide Download:

http://www.afisservices.com/gcse-fhp/MembPages/GCSEManuals/MembGuide.pdf

Best Regards,
Your GCSE-Food & Health Protection Team

Free Poster - GCSE-FHP Member's Pledge

A pledge of commitment by organisations and employees:

If your organization is involved in the production and/or delivery of food or health products, please feel free to use this POSTER as you wish.

You may post it to motivate your employees and/or send it to your customers to reassure them.

If you wish to have a copy with the name of your company of organisation inserted, you may contact the GCSE-FHP Team at: gcse@afisservices.com and state that you wish to obtain your personalized copy of the member’s pledge poster. Please provide your membership certificate number in order to expedite your request. The pledge is issued only to companies or businesses that are members of GCSE-Food & Health Protection.

The “Live-to-Eat” or “Eat-to-Live” Question

In today’s world, how quickly can the majority of people go from sufficient wealth to dependence on charity?

Here is a scenario to consider: A person losses his or her home because of loss of job; and this person is unable to get a job because he or she no longer has a fixed address.

Do you eat to live or live to eat? What comes to your mind as you think about this question? Do you consider the types of foods that may be associated (e.g. we eat nutritious foods to live; but we live to eat non-nutritious or snack foods) or do we? What comes to mind about the socio-economic associations, the implied social responsibilities, and our moral obligation with respect to this question?

Do you clearly see the socio-economic associations (e.g. those who are wealthy mostly live to eat but the less privileged eat to live)? 

What about globally, do people in wealthy countries mostly live to eat; whereas people in poorer countries mostly eat to live?

As a food producer, have you considered if the product you supply is for those who eat to live, those who live to eat, or both?

As a food manufacturer, is your product for those who eat to live, those who live to eat, or both?

As a food outlet owner (restaurant canteen, retailer) do you consider if the types of food you sell or serve are for those who eat to live, those who live to eat, or both?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Contribute to the Growing Compendium and Be Recognized

The first volume of the GCSE-Food & Health Protection Compendium of Guiding Principles has been available for some time now. However, this is being continuously updated and contributions are needed from industry professionals and experts. You are invited to freely share your “words” of professional wisdom. If approved, your contribution will be published in the Compendium. This is a continuing opportunity because the Compendium will continue to be updated from time to time.

The guiding principles are short bits of advice that are helpful to industry operators, managers, consultants and evaluators. The names of contributors are listed alphabetically (by Last Name/Surname) in the acknowledgment section of the Compendium.

Contributions are to be unique, useful and easy to adopt by the industry. The scope covers a wide range of subjects that align with the scope of the GCSE-FHP goals and objectives. All submissions are subject to approval before they are included in the Compendium. Contributors with up to 5 or more approved entries will receive access to download a current copy of the Compendium. Depending on the number of contributions, contributors may also receive additional recognition and GCSE-FHP membership benefits.

Please send your submissions to: gcse@afisservices.com  with at least the following information:

 

1.     Full Name

2.     Membership certificate number (only contributions from members of GCSE-FHP are being accepted at this time)

3.     Name of current company or organization

4.     Country

5.     Email Address

6.     Your suggested guiding principle (brief advice)

You may submit as many guiding principles as you wish.

Ideas for submissions:

Contributed principles are to be unique, brief, useful and easy to adopt by industry operators and evaluators. The scope covers the same considerations as are outlined in the goals and objectives of GCSE-FHP:

–      protecting public health

–      promoting regulatory compliance

–      producing sufficient and safe food, pharmaceuticals and other health-related products

–      keeping food fresh

–      avoiding wastage

–      ensuring equitable and efficient distribution

–      encouraging social responsibility

–      maintaining environmental sustainability

You may view examples of the Guiding Principles here:  

http://www.afisservices.com/gcse-fhp/GPs.html
.