GAC Passes GMP Scored Audit
The need to improve was primarily driven by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) which was signed into law in January of 2011. The act aims to ensure the US food supply is safer by shifting the focus from contamination response to prevention. Today, most food manufacturers, including our food grade ammonium sulfate customers, require that suppliers have annual scored third party GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) audits of their food safety programs and production processes.
Prior to September, GAC had never had a third party scored GMP audit conducted at this facility. Anticipating the challenges ahead, we chose to utilize AIB International as our avenue to efficiently and successfully meet the food safety requirements of our customers.
AIB International is a company committed to protecting the safety of the global food supply chain by providing services to the food industry including inspections, audits, certifications, education, and technical services. AIB audits are backed by more than 60 years of experience in the field for food manufacturing, beverages, ingredients and packaging. AIB International conducts audits in more than 120 countries ranging from multinationals to small, independent producers.
The relationship and process with AIB has been a collaborative and guiding one, based upon a collective responsibility held between auditor and client. AIB has helped train and empower GAC to develop and improve our food safety and production process capabilities to meet the requirements of our food grade customers. AIB assigned one of their trained food safety professionals, Alicia, to GAC in September of 2013. Alicia guided us through two hands-on GMP training inspections in preparation for the scored audit.
GAC Chemical’s scored GMP audit was conducted on Friday, September 11, 20015. We received a very impressive score of 890 out of a maximum of 1,000!!
A score like this clearly demonstrates that GAC is committed to providing a safe, high quality product to our customers.