Quality Newsletter | Nov 2022

TALKING QUALITY WITH WOOLWORTHS Updates for Woolworths Own Brand Suppliers

ISSUE | NOVEMBER 2022

A MESSAGE FROM THE QUALITY LEADERS

Welcome to our Christmas Talking Quality newsletter Thank you for your hard work through what has been another challenging and ever changing year. Your ongoing support ensures our products meet our customer's expectations and do not disappoint. As you know, Christmas is such a key time of year for our customers, particularly as they share time and our products with their families and friends.

Over the festive period as sites become busier and team members take holidays, maintaining your focus on the Safe, Clear and True principles will ensure we don’t disappoint our customers. Please take the time to review the focus areas on the next page, these are where on previous years we have seen things go wrong. Let’s make this the best Christmas for our Woolies customers.

Lastly but not least, have a wonderful Christmas, my best wishes go to you, your family and teams.

Natalie Cook

Paul Kelly

Head of Quality - Longlife & Asia ncook@woolworths.com.au +61 429 159 858

Senior Policy and Regulatory Manager pkelly5@woolworths.com.au +61 410 200 112

Chandaka Ratnapala

Lauren Cook

Head of Quality - Fresh Food & Customer Sensory cratnapala@woolworths.com.au +61 402 041 963

General Manager E2E Quality & Food Safety lcook@woolworths.com.au +61 407 267 494

KEEP OUR PRODUCTS

SAFE, CLEAR & TRUE

FOR OUR CUSTOMERS BY FOCUSING ON THESE KEY CONTROLS

Safe from Undeclared Allergens

Packaging - are your controls effectively preventing incorrect labels being used? Remember, an undeclared allergen could be fatal.

Cross contact - Does your production plan schedule minimise cross contact. Are your post allergen cleans being maintained in this busy period?

Raw Materials - Have you ensured you have enough raw materials to cover the Christmas & New Year Production periods? Avoiding the need for using emergency suppliers (remember all raw material changes need to be approved by your Quality Specialist).

Clear from Foreign Objects

We often see changes in core teams - Have you trained your new team members? Do they understand their role in the detection and prevention of foreign objects?

Metal Detector / X-ray systems - When something goes wrong, does the team member know what action to take? Are rejects appropriately investigated?

Product on hold - Are all staff aware of how to place product on hold and how to quarantine? We have had several withdrawals due to quarantined stock being released.

True: Are you Labelling Correctly?

Having the correct label on the product is fundamental - but as we can see by the number of recalls reported by the ACCC, it can so easily go wrong. Incorrect labels are our biggest trend should be cause of withdrawals, so labels are a key principle to focus on over Christmas and into the New Year.

Do you have trained competent staff checking the label?

Do you have a trained back up person if the regular person is on leave or has gone on a break?

Watch out for when the year on date codes move to 2023

NEWS & UPDATES CATHY BEALE SENIOR QUALITY SPECIALIST & SARAH WINWRIGHT QUALITY MANAGER

Process Changes:

GUI.072 Supplier Guidance - Completing Food Specifications in Sphere V2 has been updated and can be found on the Supplier Portal.

Key changes include: Information regarding multipacks

Entering of Sustainability information

Sample site explanation

Linked sites in Sphere

Glossary Update: A-Z

The Certification Type Glossary in the Raw-Materials Table has recently been updated. When progressing a specification to Collaborative Draft, if you get an error message directing you to the “Certification Type” field, please navigate to the Raw Material Table & update the certification type for the ingredient referenced in the table.

Specs to be Active:

An Active Product specification is part of our supply agreement with your business. Woolworths is currently tracking specifications that are not yet Active for product articles currently on shelf. Please work with your Quality Specialist to have these authorised and activated as soon as possible after first production. In 2023 specifications will need to be active before 1st production.

Contacts Details:

Please ensure your contacts are updated in Sphere.

Instructions on how to update are located on the Supplier Portal. Having updated contacts means communication and distribution of information can be done quickly and correctly.

The current global environment is a perfect opportunity for food fraud, as we continue to see cost pressures, shipping delays and raw material shortages. In particular, we are hearing of shortages in wheat, durum semolina, fruit, milk, pine nuts, almonds, butter and sunflower oil.

Now is the perfect time to review your vulnerability plans to prevent you from becoming the next victim of a scam.

Angela O'Shea

Category Quality Manager

Additionally if you need to switch raw materials, below are some suggestions on types of questions you should to ask the supplier and also ALWAYS let your Quality Specialist know about any changes.

For Example: Has your raw material/finished product supply changed? Are you sure what you are buying is what it says in the specification?

Has the raw material supply chain changed? Is there now a new processor? Do they have additional allergens on site? Are there new risks of foreign objects or microbiological contamination?

Have you checked all the product claims? For example organic certification, GMO, sustainability certification, country of origin, no artificial additives; are they the same?

Has your raw material/finished product been downgraded? Is the species or grade still the same?

Has your raw material/finished product been diluted?

Concentration, weight, volume, ingredient percentage.

Strengthening your mitigation strategies to prevent food fraud.

Ensure that your product specification includes a detailed description of the raw material/finished product you are buying, this could save you time and money in the long run.

SUPPLIER EXCELLENCE (FOOD) STANDARD

We have kicked off a review of the Supplier Excellence Standard to ensure we are continuing to remove duplication from our standard with relevant GFSI standards, and to continue to manage our risks to ensure we manufacture safe and compliant products.

It is anticipated that the review will be completed this year, with the launch of the standard early 2023, as always there will be an implementation period before the revised standard will be auditable.

Paul Kelly

Senior Policy & Regulatory Manager

PRODUCT CLAIMS The ACCC has launched two internet sweeps to identify misleading environmental and sustainability marketing claims and fake or misleading online business reviews. Read More.

Louise Jones

Policy & Regulatory Specialist Food

It is a timely reminder to ensure all claims no matter the topic that you consider the overall impression and ensure you have adequate substantiation to support the claim. Work with your Quality Specialist and Product Developer during the product development process to ensure the correct documentation is attached to the specification.

Thank you