Primority Global Alert Service

Problem:

Food manufacturers, processors, importers, and retailers have a legal and moral and requirement to monitor and assess food safety, intentional adulteration and food fraud threats to the raw materials they use in their finished products.

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Following Brexit, the UK no longer has full access to RASFF (the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) unless the UK is ‘directly affected’. This is causing problems for UK food businesses since monitoring potential threats and issues in the food supply chain is now a manual process with no access to email alerts for UK firms.

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The result of this is an increased risk of important issues and incidents which ‘fly under the radar’ and therefore can cause serious safety and costly product recall issues due to a lack of detection.

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A recent example of such issues going undetected was the detection of traces of undeclared peanut in soya lecithin. The incident was first logged in RASFF on 19th April, but it took several weeks for the risk to be widely highlighted in the trade press and through other channels.

 

This has resulted in a significant risk that there is an unknown quantity of contaminated products on supermarket shelves containing soya lecithin which are being consumed and pose a high risk of allergen safety to susceptible populations.

 

Solution:

Primority has created an automated alert system called the ‘Global Alert Service’ which allows UK, Irish, US and other international firms to monitor potential threats to their products and their businesses. This service monitors multiple major food safety sources in one single and comprehensive service. The data sources monitored include:

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• RASFF

• UK Food Standards Agency

• Food Safety Authority of Ireland

• US FDA Alerts, Recalls and Import Alerts (US version of RASSF)

• Canadian Food Inspection Agency

• ACCC - Australia and New Zealand Food Alerts

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Users of the Primority Global Alert service can search historical data from all data sources to monitor trends of concern. They can also create keyword alerts on their raw materials to ensure that they receive timely alerts on issues and incidents which are detected. Keyword detection trends are monitored on a dashboard to see trends and emerging issues with respect to relevant raw materials and suppliers.

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An integrated Action management tool also enables users to log and progress actions taken to ensure important issues can be risk assessed and stay visible in addition to being able to demonstrate compliance with their obligations on safety, traceability, and accountability. This approach provides a robust, affordable solution which helps reduce safety risks to consumers and compliance risks to food companies in addition to helping reduce the risk of an expensive food recall.

 

How it works:

Primority’s AI Scan service gathers data from trusted data sources worldwide and compiles this information using Artificial Intelligence to read and analyse food safety hazards into a central Global Food Alert database. Where possible, a combination of traditional logic and our unique AI service will identify the name of the product, the name of the supplier and what the problem is.

The resultant data is tagged and classified, and users can then receive alerts which match either:

• The keywords they wish to monitor

• The names of raw materials they are buying

• The ingredients contained in the raw materials they are buying*

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*Ingredients for raw materials must be set up in the system

Using this approach, the Primority Global Alert service will automatically highlight important issues as soon as they become available and allow users to act quickly to assess the impact of any issues and minimise risk to their customers, consumers, and their business.