Can I press our suppliers for certifications of their products?

[vasilist]

Hello to all of you!

If my company ( in the field of foods) that i work for as a quality assurance manager hasn't been certified for HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) can i press our suppliers for certifications of their products?

If some of them aren't willing to give these certifications , do i have something to press more , using European food law maybe?

Can these suppliers deny my claims for audit?

(in the end we are going to stop working with them but until then i really would like to know if i can use any law legislation)

Thank you very much in advance.

I surely wish I could give you a definitive response, but I am not it the food service field. My only observation would be that you should position yourself/company to have multiple suppliers so that you might have more clout in initiating your business ideals and plans.

Sure this is a mamby-pamby response, and maybe all of your possible suppliers could buy you out with a wave of the hand.

Just remember that all we all have in this field (quality) of business is reputation and integrity. Use it well and things can and will fall in place.

Just as an example, my line of business just so happened to be that of a supplier to auto companies that consigned their goods to us for further processing.

The conundrum is that even though we sell them a value added process, they are still the suppler. How does a 10-30 mil supplier call up G.M. and tell them that they sent us scrap parts to process and we refuse to accept their product?

Talk about taking it in both ends and saying "yes sir, how high" to the buyer and the suppler when they are one in the same!!!!!

Good luck and tread carefully!

[Aaron Lupo]

You can force can supplier to do anything (if you are big enough). Your supplier works for you and should try to meet all your quality and technical requirements. Your company can always choose to use a different supplier, if they refuse to get HACCP.