Food Safety and Quality Policy

Purpose. Sets the food safety and quality commitments that apply from harvest and catch through processing, storage and distribution, and the requirements of the food safety program.

1.Commitment

Coastline will supply seafood that is safe to eat, meets the customer specification and complies with the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, the Primary Production and Processing Standard for Seafood and export requirements. Food safety is managed through a documented food safety program built on hazard analysis and critical control points, verified by internal audit and by the state food authority and the export regulator.

2.Critical control points

The food safety program identifies critical control points at receival temperature, cooking of crustaceans, chilling after cooking, product temperature in storage and transport, and metal detection on packed product. Each critical control point has a critical limit, a monitoring frequency, a corrective action and a record. Records must be completed at the time of monitoring, never afterwards.

• Receival: product at or below 4 degrees, or alive and vigorous for live product
• Cooking: core temperature and time verified for every batch
• Chilling: cooked product below 4 degrees within the set time
• Storage and transport: chilled at or below 4 degrees, frozen at or below minus 18 degrees
• Metal detection: every carton checked, test pieces verified each hour

3.Hygiene

Every worker in the plant and distribution centre must follow the personal hygiene rules: clean protective clothing, hair and beard covering, hand washing on entry and after any contamination, no jewellery, no eating or smoking in production areas, and reporting of illness before starting a shift. Cleaning and sanitation must follow the master cleaning schedule and be verified by swabbing.

4.Traceability

Every harvest, catch and received lot must carry a lot identifier and every processed batch a batch code that links to its inputs, date, line, shift and destination. Records must allow one step back and one step forward tracing within four hours during a mock or real recall.

5.Shellfish

Oysters must only be harvested when the lease is open under the shellfish quality assurance program, must carry the harvest area and date on every bag and carton, and must be chilled to the program requirements within the set time of harvest.

6.Non-conformance and recall

Product that does not meet a critical limit or the specification must be placed on hold, labelled and recorded in the Processing Batch and Traceability Register. The Product Recall Procedure must be followed where product that is unsafe or non-compliant has left the control of the business.