Eurofins Partner Receives First-Ever GFSI Award
How a Eurofins partnership helped the 2017 winners achieve GFSI excellence
In March 2017, Champion Petfoods®, a strategic partner of Eurofins Food Safety Systems, was recognized with the first-ever GFSI Award. To be eligible for the award, businesses must have utilized the GFSI Global Markets Programme to achieve full certification to a GFSI-benchmarked food safety management scheme. In the Q&A below, the Champion Petfoods® team described how their relationship with Eurofins led them to certified success!
Why did you choose Eurofins as your Certification Body?
We have partnered with Eurofins for many different services such as testing, training and gap assessments. Our trusted partnership with Eurofins led us to choose them as our Certification Body for our GFSI - SQF certification.
What was your biggest obstacle in your journey to become certified? How did you overcome that obstacle?
We gave ourselves a very tight timeline to achieve SQF Certification. Our goal was to get certified within a year of beginning production at our new DogStar® Kitchens in Kentucky on January 4, 2016. Our biggest obstacle in our journey towards certification was ensuring that we implemented all requirements in the short amount of time. We leveraged the GFSI Global Markets Programme and setup a project team to focus on meeting our deadlines. Eurofins helped us with our gap assessments, trainings and certification process. Because of the support from our Champion team members, GFSI and Eurofins, we were able to meet our deadline and achieved 94% on our audit.
What advice would you give to an animal food facility that is just beginning the process to become certified?
We would encourage them to stick to the process and utilize the tools available from GFSI. We have learned that having trusted partners is crucial to success. Utilizing partnerships you already have, as well as creating new ones will help you meet the necessary requirements, including training, gap assessments and certification.
What was your biggest surprise from gaining certification?
Our team members and partners hard work allowed us to complete the audit with a score of 94% after being operational for less than one year. We were humbled and honored to have been recognized for our outstanding food safety systems by being the first ever recipient of the GFSI Global Markets Programme Award!
Now that your facilities are certified, what is your plan to keep the new habits and lessons learned in place as you move forward to maintain your certification?
Food safety is our number one priority and we are continuously looking for ways to advance and improve our systems and processes. We want to continue to enhance the food safety culture across Champion to help us earn the trust of Pet Lovers everywhere.
You elected the optional services of GAP Analysis and on-site training. How did these services benefit you and your team, and would you recommend these services to others considering certification?
The gap assessment and on-site training services helped to improve our understanding of the food safety standard requirements for SQF Certification with our entire team. The consultants involved with the gap assessment and training were extremely detailed and helped us achieve such a high score on our certification audit.
What was more important—price, or service and quality?
At Champion, the most important thing is trust. Trusted partnerships help us earn the trust of pet lovers everywhere.
Would you recommend Eurofins as a partner for other businesses seeking a partner in Food Safety?
We would definitely recommend Eurofins as a partner in Food Safety. They are able to perform testing or analytical requirements in any part of the world and have a competent and reliable team to help with any technical or process food safety questions or needs. Eurofins is knowledgeable on new and emerging regulatory changes and are experts in food safety.
In your own words, please briefly summarize your overall experience working with Eurofins.
We have worked with Eurofins many times before and continue to build this relationship through our positive experiences. Our trusted partnership with Eurofins helped us achieve SQF Certification and has helped us further our Champion vision, mission and values.
Eurofins’ partnerships with industry leaders and food safety authorities have propelled us to the forefront of food safety certification. We strive to help our partners achieve excellence in food safety by offering expertise in a format customized for each business.
