Marini Group

Consultancy

The consultancy services of marinigroup are addressed to all food and agriculture supply chain rings:
- Agricultural companies
- Breeding farms
- Fodder producers
- Production, transformation and distribution plants
- Collective catering companies
- Organized large distribution
During its activity, our company has acquired a great experience in the meat supply chain specialization sector. All consultancy activities are followed by highly skilled staff, qualified in the type of intervention to be carried out in order to set up a continuous and mutual satisfaction partnership relation with companies. The marinigroup offers technical consultancy and assistance services for activities below:

Self-control plans and HACCP systems
The EC 852/04, 853/04 and 854/04 regulations as well as other norms included in the hygiene package, enhanced the principle of self-control in the whole food and agricultural production sector, with special reference to the application of an HACCP system. Moreover, they also set forth the primary production phases (earth, breeding and fishing products ) amongst the phases to be submitted to self-control. Finally, as required by EC 183/05 regulation, also livestock nourishment producers (fodder production, drying plants and systems for processing raw materials addressed to livestock nourishment), must set up a self-control plan based on the HACCP principles.
All accomplishments related to self-control, in any sector, shall be carried out by the company manager in charge, who must set up, maintain operating and make available to competent authorities all documentation required to guarantee own production food safety.
The Self-control system must be specific to each company; the identification of the critical points must not be carried out beforehand, but only after the real process analysis.
The Self-control system must be documented as documentation is the means to be able to prove to third parties the actual compliance to rules and procedures for risk prevention adopted by the company.

The preparation of documentation concerning self-control requires the company active participation and involvement. The establishment of a Self-Control System must be based on the HACCP method principles, i.e. analyse possible dangers for food, assess risks and determine specific inspection measures.
To be efficient, the system must be able to prove its capacity to keep process under control.
Therefore, a Self-control system shall at least include:
• HACCP study
• Management procedures of specific activities also defined delocalized procedures (e.g. SSOP/cleaning, disinfection, staff training, supplier selection, etc.)
• Specific procedures for binding requirement management (e.g.: traceability as per EC 178/02 Reg. waste disposal as per EC 1774/02 Reg., allergen management Dir. CE 89/2003 acknowledged by Law Decree 114/2006)

Management systems for food safety in agreement with ISO 22000 standard.
The purpose of this international standard is to globally harmonize requirements concerning food safety for trading within food supply chain.
It is addressed to organizations looking for a more focused, consistent and integrated food safety management system than normally required by law.
This standards integrates the principles of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system as well as applicative measures developed by Codex Alimentarius Commission by means of certifiable requirements and relates the HACCP plan with prerequisite program (PRP).
In fact, it defines that all dangers, whose onset can be reasonably foreseen within the food supply chain, including dangers that might be associated to the type of process and structures, must be identified and assessed. Therefore, this standard makes available all means to document and support the reasons why certain identified dangers must be kept under control and why, for others, this is not necessary.
The purposes of the ISO 22000 standard are:
- To plan, project, apply, manage, maintain and update a food safety management system, with the purpose to supply finished products that, in agreement with their predefined use, are safe and the user.
- to prove compliance to applicable legal requirements or to food safety standards.
- To assess and examine consumer requirements and prove their compliance to requirements agreed with the customer on food safety, in order to increase customer’s satisfaction.
- Efficiently communicate issues related to food safety to one’s suppliers, customers and other parties concerned by food supply chain.
- Ensure that organization complies with the food safety policy it has declared.
- To prove this compliance to concerned parties.
- To require certification or recording of its own safety management system by an outsourced organization or to perform a self-assessment or self-declaration of conformity as per this international standard.

ISO 9001 quality systems
What is quality? It is not easy to give a definition of quality, as each one has a different perception of it and deems that a product or service is of good or bad quality according to fully personal parameters.
Quality of an entity is its capacity to satisfy our expectations and it cannot be perceived but as a level of satisfaction of a given expectation. .
Based on this, quality (UNI EN ISO 9001:2000) means the extent to which a set of inner characteristics (distinctive features) satisfies requirements, where requirement is the expectation that might be expressed, normally implicit or binding.
The organization of quality management system follows the principles enunciated by Std. ISO 9001edition 2000:
a) Customer-oriented organization
b) Leadership
c) Staff involvement
d) Process-based approach
e) Systematic management approach
f) Continuous improvement
g) Decisions based on actual facts
h) Mutual profitable relationship with suppliers

Environmental management systems - ISO 14001 and EMAS II regulations
As defined by the Standard, an environmental Management System is "the general part of system including organization structure, planning activities, responsibilities, procedures, methods, resources to process, implement, review and keep environmental policy active”.
Project implementation includes following phases:
1. initial environmental analysis and this phase includes:
2. formalization, development and management system optimization.
Therefore, focus points to be developed are:
• organization environmental policy:
• the description of all significant, direct and indirect environmental aspects determining significant organization environmental impacts as well as the explanation of the nature of impacts related to these aspects;
• the description of the environmental targets and objectives with relation to significant environmental aspects and impacts;
• the description of data available on organization performance as to its objectives and environmental targets with relation to significant environmental impacts.
Other factors concerning environmental performance, including performance as to legal requirements with relation to significant environmental impacts, cannot be overlooked as they constitute system bearing base.

BRC and IFS standards
The IFS (International Food Standard) standard has been defined by Global Safety Initiative (GFSI) in January 2004.
This standard is mostly applied by the German Large Organized Distribution, in particular by large European groups, for which the exclusive application of national norms is not considered sufficient to satisfy the increasing demand for safety and reliability.
The BRC (British Retail Consortium) standard has been established in April 2002 and it is mainly acknowledged by U.K. companies.
The compliance to both standards is often an essential requirement to export and become a supplier of large organized distribution mentioned above.
Standard requirements are, in general:
• the existence of a food safety management system ;
• the adoption of Good Production Practices;
• the existence of an efficient HACCP and quality system plan.

Voluntary product certifications
With the voluntary product certification, a third entity states that the product is un conformity with the declaration contained in a reference technical document made by the organization that requires certification.
The organization choice of product requirements to be certified is based on the will to advise customers about some special and significant characteristics that feature its product compared to others of the same category sold on the market.
In fact, this type of certification is based on the modern marketing need to place, enhance and differentiate the agricultural food products.
For the purposes of a voluntary product certification, the company must draw up a production requirement sheet defining:
- product and its characteristics subject to certification
- the operating procedure for the management of the various companies activities finalized to ensure that requirements subject to certification are kept;
- audits finalized to check requirements subject to certification

Voluntary audited supply chain certifications
The audited supply chain certification belongs to the voluntary product certification family.
By supply chain, we mean a group of operators, bonded by a contractual commitment and co-ordinated by a requiring party, contributing to the manufacture of a product in the customer-supplier logics.
The audited supply chain certification states that product traceability is guaranteed and documented throughout supply chain and that hygiene-sanitary requirements are managed through all phases, according to the HACCP criteria.
The main document to be prepared is the Product Specification for of the audited supply chain, including:
- the description of supply chain;
- the indications about contractual agreements between the parties;
- the specific responsibilities;
- the modalities for traceability system and for hygiene and safety management and audit.

Voluntary Certifications of inter company and supply chain traceability as per UNI 10939 and ISO 20005 standards.
Besides applicable regulation requirements (Reg. CE 178/02), companies can implement inter company and/or supply chain traceability systems depending on if data concern one company exclusively or if they are collected along the complete supply chain. Besides meeting legal requirements, the implementation of traceability systems also allows focusing some product characteristics such as their origin or ingredients.
The ISO 22005:07 standard acknowledges the UNI 10939:01 norm related to the “Food and agriculture supply chain traceability systems” and UNI 11020:02 norm related to the “Food and agriculture traceability system” and it is applicable to the complete food and agriculture sector, including fodder production.
For the traceability system management, following aspects shall be defined in a specific document:
- traceability system targets
- regulations and documents applicable to traceability system
- products and ingredients subject to traceability
- position of each organization within the food chain, customer and supplier identification
- material flows
- information to be managed
- documentation
- supply chain management method

Part one audit (In-house inspection) and part two Audit (customer-supplier)
Part one audits (in-house inspections) have the purpose to check the application of the management systems activated in the company:
- self-control
- ISO 9001 and/or ISO 22000
- Product, supply chain, traceability certifications
or simply addressed to checking for respect of good processing practice or specific issue management (e.g. allergen management).
Part two audits are carried out on behalf of a customer (e.g. GDO) on one’s suppliers, with the purpose to check compliance with specific requirements (e.g. production specifications).

All audits are carried out using check-lists purposely drawn up to check the various requirements. For the customer-supplier audits, the check list is drawn up or agreed by/with customer.
At the end of each audit, a final report is issued, with comment and judgement of the audited issue.
Audits are made by auditors qualified as "quality system auditor", granted after a 40-hour AICQ course and with specific experience acquired in the audited sector.

Personnel training
Training concerns subjects below:
• Hygiene-sanitary issues, in replacement of the Sanitary Booklets
• Legal aspects such as labelling, application of new regulations.
Theory courses can be held both at the company and at our facility, equipped with a permanent training classroom.
For each training course, efficiency indicators are defined and, if required, efficiency can also be assessed.
Moreover, the marinigroup is available to design specific training courses based on the specific customer’s requests.

Drawing up of optional specifications for bovine and aviculture meat labelling.
The EEC 1760/00 regulation governs bovine meat traceability and labelling, requiring the drawing up of a specification setting forth the procedure for traceability and optional labelling to be approved by the Ministry of Agricultural Policies.
For the aviculture meat, optional labelling is regulated by the Ministerial Decree dated 29.07.04.
Audits are managed by a third agency, UNI EN 45011 accredited, appointed by the Ministry for auditing.
The document on which the traceability procedure is based is the Technical Specification.
The specification includes:
• identification of information to be shown on label
• for each datum, the definition of modalities for its ”guarantee”
For the aviculture meat, the optional labelling is governed by the Ministerial Decree dated 29.07.04. As for the bovine meat, a specification shall be drawn up, including the procedure for traceability and optional labelling, to be approved by the Ministry of Agricultural Policies.
The marinigroup deals with managing the bureaucracy aspects concerning the relationships with the auditing agency and with the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies.

The laboratory management systems are in compliance with ISO 17025 standard.
The UNI EN ISO 17025 standard defines the "General requirements for the competence of test and calibration laboratories ".
The consultancy activity includes:
- the analysis of available documentation on the quality system management and on the performance of each test (analysis methods, maintenance and instrument calibration procedures, validation of analytic methods).
- training on management and technical requirements, for instance, the procedures to assess analysis method measurement uncertainty and analysis method validation.
- review of procedures related to the quality system aspect and to the test performance technical aspect.
- the drawing up of a Quality manual in compliance with ISO 17025 standard.