
Traceability control of food supplements, what does it consist of?
When a company starts manufacturing or marketing food supplements in Spain, it must be registered in the Health Registry. And when carrying out a food activity, they must also have the corresponding self-control system, a mandatory document that identifies the possible risks of contamination in the food chain and establishes rules to control these hazards and thus minimize the chances of food poisoning.
Traceability is defined as a series of procedures that allow to follow the process of evolution of a product in each of its stages. They allow to know the history, location and trajectory of a product or batch of products throughout the supply chain at a specific time. This process, in fact, has caused companies that manage and execute the Blockchain technology to apply this technology to traceability, allowing security for everything that happened during the food product chain.
The traceability system must consider the following aspects:
- The product identification.
- For each product, its data such as raw materials, the way in which it was produced or transformed, its origin and destination, and the controls to which it has been subjected.
- The relationship between product identification and data on it.
There are three types of traceability depending on the activity within the food chain:
- Ascending (backward): knowing which products are received in the company, limited with some traceability information (lot, expiration date/preferential consumption), and who are the suppliers of those products.
- Internal or process traceability: Traceability within the company itself.
- Descending (forward): know what the products are issued by the company, bounded with some traceability information (lot, expiration date/preferential consumption) and know their destinations and customers.
The lack of the self-control system or the traceability of the products can lead to significant administrative sanctions with accessory measures such as the immobilization of the products or the temporary closure of the company.