YOUR PRODUCTION
f BY outsourcing his coolroom maintenance services, he can get a ‘before and after maintenance report’ and reduce the risk of a major breakdown.
Exploring opportunities to achieve positive practical outcomes.
Food safety elements in practice delivering outcomes for growers
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BY JOEL DINSDALE QUALITY ASSURANCE COORDINATOR, VEGETABLESWA
recently spoke with vegetablesWA committee member Paul Glavocich about how Freshcare delivers extras for his business, Glavocich Produce. Exploring opportunities for how he can achieve positive practical outcomes while also ticking off the food safety and regulatory requirements demanded by markets and customers at the same time. 16
WA Grower SPRING 2021
This is a somewhat hidden component of Freshcare that further adds value to the scheme for growers like Paul (beyond the food safety elements). It’s another great reason to adopt a thirdparty certification program into your horticulture business — not just for food safety alone.
Business partners Paul and Crystal recently invested in a coolroom to give them storage and delivery flexibility as the addition allows for best practice storage for his vegetable lines. The setup initially required a capital investment, and it also requires ongoing maintenance and cleaning resources to ensure that it is running efficiently. Paul and Crystal wanted to maximise their return on investment, so they have looked to their certification program (QA system) to assist in the delivery of positive outcomes.
They know they must do the following to maintain their Freshcare certification: • Document the coolroom into their F8 Preventative maintenance plan (which requires them to maintain it as documented); • Document the coolroom into their F8 Cleaning plan (which requires ongoing cleaning as per the plan); • Calibration as documented in the F8 Measuring/Monitoring Register and Calibration Records; They want to streamline this process to remain efficient so, Paul wanted a method to determine if the coolroom is functioning as programmed. To achieve this, he has installed a datalogger that captures the inside temperature at intervals of time. This allows him to quickly access temperature versus time details. If the temperature is too high or too low at a time when it has been closed for a prolonged period, then he knows he needs to get onsite to verify the numbers and potentially make changes/repairs.
