Egg producer impresses EU contingent with traceability system
16 August 2013
A delegation of European industry leaders recently conducted a site tour at Irish egg producer and packer Riverview Eggs’ Cork facility. The purpose of the tour was to learn best practices in the egg industry for traceability, with a view to applying similar best practices and standards across Europe.
Over the last two and a half years, Riverview Eggs has co-developed a unique system with a neutral, not for profit global organisation Global Standards 1, Ireland (GS1 Ireland). Riverview Eggs is the only egg producer and packer in Ireland to have such a system. At the "press of a button", the system can determine which retailer or customer got what eggs, when they got them and from what henhouse they were produced. This allows for instant traceability and complete transparency regarding the origin egg and the supply chain of Riverview Eggs.
The delegation of European visitors included; The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE); Working Party on Agricultural Quality Standards, The Polish Agricultural Ministry and three senior executives from the Russian Egg and Poultry Industry. Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, who went on the tour with the delegation said: "The visit of such an influential international delegation is of huge significance not only to Riverview Eggs, but also to Ireland as it reinforces just how rigid we are with our traceability from farm to fork. I would like to congratulate Riverview Eggs and their counterparts GS1 on a truly important traceability and stock system."
The main purpose of the visit was to learn about ensuring traceability in the egg and poultry industry, as well as to see how poultry processing and egg production is organised at one of Ireland’s leading poultry industry companies. Commenting on the visit, managing director DJ Kelleher remarked: "Being recognised on an EU scale, as the standard to emulate, is a testament to our long history of commitment to excellence with particular emphasis on product quality control and safety which is very important to all our customers such as Dunnes, SuperValu, Centra, Tesco Ireland, as well as Pallas Foods and the symbol groups."
Speaking about the traceability scheme, Martin Kelleher, managing director, SuperValu said: "SuperValu has enjoyed a long and successful association with Riverview Eggs for over 30 years. We are committed to supporting local and Irish suppliers across our business and it is a real endorsement of our quality credentials when suppliers such as Riverview Eggs provide such assurance through their traceability systems. SuperValu has applied numerous traceability innovations in our own-brand supply chains and we are delighted with this further development by Riverview Eggs which provides additional traceability assurance for Supervalu customers."
The system allows every stock item to be traceable in the event of a swift recall whereby a full program is in place so that when eggs come in from a farm, the full quantity and age of the egg is scanned in at Riverview Eggs’ facility. When the egg is packed, all of that traceability information is put on to the egg, the pack and the outer case and logged into stock on their premises. When the product is exiting the premises, it is scanned out to the particular customer so that if a recall is needed they are able to trace a particular batch from a specific henhouse and to which customer those eggs were dispatched to.
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