Supply Chain Management in Food Science

Maintaining food Supply Chain has become unconditional when it comes to food trade and customer demand. The food put on the market has to be of good quality and safe for consumption, as well as not be a source of disease and infection. For this reason, securing foodchain safety and quality is a matter of international significance and a responsibility of food producers and Governments. During the process of distribution food products go through all stages of supply chain, as. all processes which describe how food travels from a farm to the consumers? tables. The aim of this strategy, called “from the field to the table”, is to achieve full supervision of food safety in the modern world, because the journey leading from food production to the consumer is very time - and space consuming. Along this journey, there are many dangers of food contamination, be it in the very production, during the transport, food storage, or food preparation. In order to enable food quality and sanitary safety of food products, companies or retailers have to follow legislations, standards and norms at every stage of supply chain.

 Food Logistics security is an important component of the food supply chain, and it’s a cover of the food transportation, storage, handling, packaging, distribution, processing, and information application which formed a complete chain, and with the business flow, information flow, capital flow together constitute the a complete system food supply chain . Part of the northeast region is located in the border, where economic underdevelopment, transportation, warehousing, information technology, and lags behind, a lot of infrastructure facilities are older, the amount of infrastructure can take advantage is not great. Such as in Heilongjiang Province the resources of food Logistics are scattered. Basically large companies almost establish their own logistics network, resulting in low utilization of resources, integration of resources not strong, increasing transportation costs, affecting efficiency of circulation.

Importance of Supply Chain

 Defining supply chain is not unambiguous. Some companies have different approaches to defining supply chain, so they have to be critically assessed. The term is often connected with the term logistics, where logistics is narrower in scope than supply chain and vice versa, or the terms are seen as interchangeable.Supply chain management is a broader concept than logistics, which is defined as a process of strategic management of supply, movement and storage of materials, partially or completely finished goods and information, through the organization and its marketing channels It defines supply chain as an organizational and informational integration of individual processes of supply of business functions in a company, which makes the internal part of supply chain, and their connection to the processes from outside directly involved in creating value, which makes the external part of supply chain, and all this with the aim to optimize the whole process of the flow of goods (materials, intermediate and finished products) and to increase possibilities of creating value.

Therefore, five elements crucial for achieving the supply chain results can be determined: production, supplies, location, transport and information. The coordination of these elements is needed in order to achieve the best combination of efficiency and profitability for the targeted market. The coordination of the flow of goods, information and finance between the involved companies along the journey from the raw material to the final consumer is in fact managing the supply chain.

Importance of food products supply chain

 Food products are most delicate goods on the market, for they are exposed to the risks like inadequate storage, wrong temperature levels, poor air quality, humidity, light and other factors influencing the quality and safety. The examples corroborating this are: with no optimal temperature, bacteria grow uncontrollably, and the light directly influences the quality of a fresh product. Likewise, without proper storage, goods become perishable. Therefore, every storage room has to be equipped with control units which report temperature levels at any time.Farmers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers and transporters are participants in the food supply chain, and therefore obligated to enable proper conditions certain food products require. The flow of information among the participants is also important, as well as the product management, in order to maintain the food quality in the supply chain,The food products supply chain relates to all the processes (production, manufacturing, distribution, sales and consumption), which describe the flow of foods from the farm (field) to the consumers’ tables.

Every activity in the supply chain requires man or natural resources, and if a part of the chain is endangered, this affects the entire chain. To avoid the chain to fall apart, i. e. the products to perish, it is crucial that participants value certain characteristics of a product, its origin, legal requirements and the temperature sensibility set by the producer’s declaration. Important roles here play the distributors who are obliged to ensure traceability of a product at any time, which is ensured by special informational technology for temperature monitoring etc.

Bearing in mind that the food placed on the market needs to be of a certain quality, a high level of security is needed, because the very supply chain is set in a complicated, dynamic and time-critical environment. Therefore, an important role in the evolution and development of modern food supply chains hold six key factors: quality, technology, logistics, informational technology, regulatory framework and the buyer.Food products play an important role in economy. Companies dealing with food have two parallel systems for food quality preservation and safety.

The system enabled by the state is based on legislations which define ways of ensuring quality and set mandatory and voluntary standards, and which are controlled by state inspections. Introducing standards leads to the improvement of company performance. Food companies achieve marketing competitive advantage, as well as increase market share by applying recognized standards. They also achieve multiple advantages like easier accomplishing the goals and quality policies related to food safety set by the administration, alignment with international standards and global market requirements, which, in the end, can influence the increase in productivity.

 On the global market, there is a growing issue of food safety, so the participants in the food production chain have the need to internationally align the norms which would enable a complete system for food safety management and producing and market placement of completely safe and quality food. The norms are established by a consensus, and they set different SCM requirements for safety, quality, traceability of product, as well as protection of safety and health of people, environmental protection etc. Certain norms have to be administered. However, which voluntary norm and when it will be applied by a food company depends on the decisions of management and the company director. Considering the ever growing global market and changeable market laws, companies are forced to constantly adapt to these changes, and one way is to accept and implement internationally recognized standards. Because of a great number of national norms, the need arose for adjusting the norms to the international level, and that is how ISO 22000 was created, which is a set of norms representing industry’s tendency to create international norm acceptable and recognizable in all countries.

Food safety

Subjects dealing with food are responsible for food preservation they put on the market according to prescribed regulations during all the phases of production, processing and distribution. They are primarily responsible for complying with the hygiene conditions, ensuring traceability in all the phases of food production, processing and distribution, animal food, animals used for food production etc. They are also responsible for construction of facilities according to Food Hygiene, in the way that they ensure the construction under special conditions, their location, and necessarymeans of transport or containers for food transportation have to be construed in a way to ensure adequate cleaning and disinfection and must not be used for transport of anything else besides food.

All equipment and materials used have to be regularly maintained and installed as to enable easier cleaning and disinfection, as well as appropriate control devices for measuring temperature, pressure etc.Every subject that comes in touch with food has to comply with the high level of personal hygiene regulations and go through an adequate training in line with special regulations for certain food sector. If subjects have infected injuries, they must not handle food nor enter the area where food is handled, and have to wear proper protective clothing.

Global Food Safety Initiative is an unprofitable organization which promotes improvement of food safety system in order to ensure consumers’ trust in the delivery of safe food. There are three main goals: ensuring protection of consumers, ensuring international knowledge and information exchange, and reducing costs in the food supply chain. International Food Standard is an unprofitable organization which sets the basic criteria for those norms that food industries have to respect. The aim of these norms is to help the retailers to ensure safety of their products and food quality monitoring. International Organization for Standardization (ISO 22000) is an internationally accepted norm which sets the conditions for establishing and maintaining an efficient system for food safety management.

 Vehicles used for food transportation have to be constructed for this purpose, clean, dust and exhaustion fumes cannot enter the vehicle, they have to be weather resistant and enable specific temperature conditions. Depending on the food being transported, we can also differentiate conditions for food handling during the transportation. For example, frozen foods have to be transported in the appropriately chilled (-18 ºC) or isolated conditions. If the food temperature would rise up to -15 ºC during the transport, it is necessary to bring it back to -18 ºC after it was received at a wholesale or a retail store as soon as possible, as it is set out in the Guide for Good Sanitary Practices. Likewise, food that requires special temperature levels needs to be stored at the appropriate temperature immediately after the delivery as to avoid the possibility of microorganisms to grow.All these vehicles are equipped with special temperature gauges with the possibility of setting the appropriate temperature. In case of food being repacked from the original packaging into specific containers or canisters, it is of great importance to save the original declaration and place it where it will be clearly visible.

The system dictates certain conditions to be met when food is being received, and those are: commercial delivery vehicle, temperature measuring, visual control, declarations control, and keeping the written records of the received food.The delivered food has to be appropriately stored. The facilities where food is stored have to meet sanitary technical and hygienic conditions as to prevent its spoilage and contamination. Depending on the food type and storage demands, food can be stored in cooling devices or coolers and at the ambient temperature. As a rule, required temperature has to be maintained and cannot fluctuate that temperature. The demands that subjects dealing with food keep records on specific forms, like, for example, of the received goods. The form for delivery and receive of goods has to be used by logistics firms, and they have to deliver following data: upon the loading of goods: date, time and place, type of goods, quantity, temperature of the goods, signature provided by the driver who received the goods, and the producer’s signature and seal; upon the delivery, data that have to be recorded are: date, time and place, goods damage notice (if there is any), type of goods, quantity, temperature of the goods, and signatures provided by the driver and the storekeeper who received the goods. Before the loading, it is also necessary to write down the registration of the vehicle and the proper methods of cleaning and maintaining the vehicle before the loading.

Conclusion

 Food safety is paramount but other factors are involved including the protection of the global environment, improvements in the quality of agricultural production, and giving those workers that produce food a reasonable standard of living, safe working environment and opportunities for their families to better themselves.

This ethical approach to the food supply chain is essential if the demands of the 21st century are to be met, and a sustainable supply of food for the expanding world population to be achieved.

A number of schemes provide certification for sustainable food production and supply chain traceability. These schemes have standards that were developed collaboratively, with auditable standards certified by independent bodies. The tools are there to help organizations in the food supply chain meet their commitment to consumers, the environment and to social wellbeing; while at the same time helping they meet their own expectations of furthering excellence.

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