EFRA Committee - 2 Sisters and Standards in Poultry Processing

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) 6-month review, May 16th 2018

2 Sisters Food Group notes the contents of the above review and is pleased the FSA has highlighted the following areas of progress in its update to the EFRA committee:

• Formulation of 2 Sisters Intelligence Sharing Group. This is a first for the sector and underlines how we have led with the transparency agenda. We now share monthly updates on our corporate website of all audit data and have worked closely with the FSA on what best practice looks like in relation to presenting data in a consistent and comprehensible format. The Intelligence group reviews all audit results; feedback from company ‘mystery workers’ and whistleblowing schemes and regulatory inspection results. The FSA believes this group should “provide the template for a more effective, collaborative and transparent approach to regulatory assurance across the sector.”

• Installation and upgrade of CCTV. On target for completion in May. All sites will have live monitoring and all footage will be retained for 180 days. The FSA have remote access to the system – another first for the industry.

• Refresher training. 82% of all UK Poultry employees have now received refresher training and this refresher activity will now be delivered annually. New roles have been introduced including a Learning & Development Facilitator and Front-Line Manager and the UK Poultry Training Academy is now fully resourced.

• Intelligence sharing. The FSA now has access to BRC, GS and RT audit reports, mystery worker and whistle blowing activity and greater KPI information. The FSA notes that: “this information goes beyond audit to give a more rounded picture of performance and this collaborative activity aims to develop a system that can be used by the FSA and FSS with others in the industry, offering a scalable solution to this challenge.”

The business gave a strong commitment at the EFRA committee on October 25th 2017 that it would follow through on the areas as described above. 

We welcome the FSA 6-month update report as it provides authoritative and independent verification that the business is on the right course and is indeed leading in several areas in relation to quality assurance.

Link to FSA update: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvfru/1070/107004.htm#_idTextAnchor001