Archive for the ‘Sourcing Safe Products’ Category
Friday, September 16th, 2011
The amount of information we are all required to be aware of today is simply mind boggling. As such a simple and effective tool that looks at the many sites providing this information and consolidating it in one location is your best bet to event try and stays aware of this information.
Most organizations like the USDA, FDA, EcoLogo, Kosher Council and the Consumer Product Safety Commission all offer RSS feeds of their most recent recalls and alerts. At SafeSourcing we consolidate over 50 of those companies so that you don’t have to. When you reach our site, the RSS fed alerts and recall section is located in the top right hand corner of the page. If you had been logged on to our system today you would already know that the listeria outbreak associated with cantaloupes has already killed four people and has spread to multiple states. What is listeria you ask? Visit the SafeSourcing Wiki to learn about many procurement related terms.
Are you aware of the Tylenol recall?
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in E-supply Chain, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
However, we continue to see a reasonable uptick in the use of e-negotiation tools in retail and this author believes that some of the following quotes from a retail CEO and his team that watched their first reverse auction last week may be the reason why.
1. “This was pretty simple to do”
2. “If we hired someone we could do these ourselves with you guys”
3. “This is fun”
4. “You mean the reports are already available”
5. “I love the sports concept”
6. “It was easy to follow the marquis and what was going on from one screen”
7. “The multiple color schemes were great”
8. “I can’t believe how fast you guys set this up”
9. “We saved that much money and only have to pay what we discussed”
10. “Can we do another one today”
11. “I may get a promotion out of this”
12. “I love that calculator at the end of the bid process”
13. “I like all of the supplier data that was accessible during the auction”
14. “Now I know how the big guys get the pricing they do”
Why not join others that have come a little late to the party. You can still benefit because today’s tools are easier to use, more interactive, maintain your attention during an auction, integrate gaming technology to keep it fun and are lower cost than their predecessors. If you happen to have already been doing this for years, why not find an easier way or do it less expensively.
If you would like to have fun, save money and do it quickly, please visit us at www.safesoucing.com.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Eprocurement Auction, Procurement Solutions, Procurement Tool, Reverse Auction, Reverse Auction Procurement, Sourcing Safe Products, Sourcing Strategy
Thursday, July 7th, 2011
Well if that’s the case why not apply for B Corporation certification. In essence this would be putting your money where your mouth is. At this point there are no real hard financial incentives for a company to do this. At least four states have passed or proposed B Corp legislation, but it is pretty clear that all will in the future.
So just what is a B CORP? I’m glad you asked. If you visit the Certified B Corporation website you’ll learn that Certified B Corporations are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corps are unlike traditional businesses because they:
• Meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards;
• Meet higher legal accountability standards;
• Build business constituency for good business
SafeSourcing is going to add B Corporation certification to our database of supplier certifications and ask companies our customers’ partner with what their plans are to achieve B Corp Certification as part of their current or future CSR initiatives. We do the same for over 30 other certifications today such as Eco Logo, SQF and LEED.
If we do a small part and our customers do a small part and their suppliers do a small part, the parts will add up. Pay it forward and do your part.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Ron Southard CEO SafeSourcing
Posted in Business Sourcing, E-supply Chain, Green eProcurement Practices, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Sourcing Strategy
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
In Canada, it’s as simple as visiting the Health Canada Website. According to Wikipedia Health Canada (French: Santé Canada) is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for national public health. Here you can find news releases, speeches, media notices and research a variety of data related to health and food safety within Canada.
Just as yesterdays post “Buyers; Do you need a great place to research product quality and recall issues” that talked about The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission the Canadian Government has many tools that buyers can use that also cost nothing. You just have to spend a little time on their site.
Sometimes the best tools are the ones you don’t have to pay for.
We look forward to and appreciates your comments.
Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Sourcing Strategy
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC’s work to ensure the safety of consumer products – such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals – contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.
Recalls and Product Safety News can be found at the CPSC’s website and can be searched using a number of categories, dates and other criteria such as those below.
1. Recall Number
2. Company
3. Product Type
4. Product Description
5. Hazard
6. Country/Administrative Area of Manufacture
7. Recall Date
8. UPC
You don’t always have to buy something in order to get your job done. Sometimes just knowing where to find the information can be the hardest part of your job. Now you have one fewer places to look.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in B2b Supply Chain, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Supply Chain Procurement
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
You can’t open up your browser or turn a page in a local or national newspaper without reading about some food borne illness issue followed by some official saying we have to get a handle on this. Most of these illnesses are lumped into the food poisoning category. Some are bacterial and others virus related.
The bacteria and viruses most frequently associated with food poisoning cases in the United States are Salmonella, Botulism, Norovirus,Vibrio Infections, Listeria, Hepatitis A, B.cereus, E.coli and Campylobacter. To this author all of these names are pretty scary and many have resulted in death.
There are dozens of trade organizations, programs within those organizations, standards and governments focused on Food Safety. And we still end up with outbreaks like we are seeing in Europe.
If I were to try and define food safety, a simple definition would be that it is a scientific discipline describing the handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food borne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. Food can transmit disease from person to person as well as serve as a growth medium for bacteria that can cause food poisoning.
Isn’t too bad it’s not that easy. Unfortunately, Food Safety seems to be proverbial camel created by a committee trying to design a horse.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products
Friday, May 27th, 2011
With the number of tractor trailers required to support our economy, emissions control is becoming a significant issue and socially conscious companies face increasing pressure as to how they plan on or are helping to reduce emissions as part to of their overall carbon footprint reduction.
I was reading an article in USA TODAY on page 3A of the May 26th 2011 edition By Larry Copeland titled Traffic emissions blamed in 2,200 deaths. The article sited a study by The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis that states congestion in the USA’s 83 largest urban areas last year led to more than 2,200 deaths and a related public health cost of $18B. WOW!
There certainly is a lot to think about here.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Green eProcurement Practices, Sourcing Safe Products
Friday, May 6th, 2011
There was an article in today’s MONEY section of USA TODAY by Elizabeth Weise titled “CDC: Over 50? Heat those cold cuts to 165º”. The sub title indicated the Goal is to cut the risk of listeria bacteria. Without getting into the article which contains some great educaional content, these are the recommendations of the CDC and have been for some time.
This author used to love fried bologna sandwiches with yellow mustard as a kid and when I lived in St. Louis I would buy a hot salami sandwich from a deli on The Hill. However, I ate them on the spot. Have you ever friend bologna and then put it in a sandwich to take to work or have your child take to school. Does the word hockey puck or shoe leather or jerky mean anything to you?
The idea behind a cold cut is that it is cold. How about figuring out a way to eliminate the risk of Listeria in cold cuts instead of changing the way the product has been used since its inception. In yesterdays post “What is the financial impact of food-borne illnesses” Listeria was one of the top 10 pathogens that collectively cost us $8B a year.
When I used to visit New York City on business, I loved to eat at Katz’s Deli and still do and will continue to. Above the counter hung a sign that read “Send a salami to your boy in the army” I was told this was from World War II but is still done today. I guess they are going to have to add something to the sign now that says cook before shipping so this can be used as a baseball bat.
Come On. Let’s figure out how to fix the problem without ruining the product.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Uncategorized
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
One thing we have learned or at least taken a step towards understanding is the financial impact of these types of events. The Emerging Pathogens Institute of the University of Florida has issued a Report that indentifies the top 10 pathogen-food combinations that cause illness in the U.S. annually as well as their financial impact. Salmonella is the leading pathogen and the culprit in the recent tomato recall costing $3B per year. According to the report the top 10 pathogens cost us $8B per year.
This author believes you could actually triple those numbers as most cases of simple diarrhea and vomiting never make there way to the hospital or other medical centers, but do in fact cause loss of work, productivity and wages. $24B is a big number.
The lesson hear is that we have still not solved the food-borne issue illness or the farm to fork issue that requires a supply chain that is traceable to it’s original source. Until we do, what goes around will continue to come around and the costs will continue to go up.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
Yesterday Taylor Farms Pacific, Inc., a California-based food supplier for a number of retail companies announced the recall of grape tomatoes produced by one of their growers based on a possible salmonella contamination.
Here’s the title of a post from three years ago on cherry tomatoes which are basically the same product, “I say Tomato, and you say Tomah to. I ate some last night”!
So the question is what have we learned and how has it been applied to these products. Food recalls cost money. They create lost revenue for retailers and lost work hours for consumers affected by the illness they cause.
If you are a retailer or a supplier affected by these recalls and you want to improve performance, give SafeSourcing a call.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products
