International Paper’s US facilities in Kenton, Ohio and Visalia, California have achieved food safety certification by exceeding the standards of the benchmarking procedures as dictated by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The two sites join its Shelbyville facility that was certified in March, 2016.
All three sites achieved scores above 99%.
Earlier this year, International Paper set the goal of exceeding the GFSI standards at 100% of the company’s US Foodservice Facilities before year-end and that has been done.
GFSI is a non-profit, international benchmarking organization created to standardize food safety rules and has been rapidly recognized as the ‘gold standard’ for international food safety.
These global specifications promoted by GFSI address food, packaging, packaging materials, storage and distribution.
The certification process requires a facility to organize its quality management system (QMS) to address components in the manufacturing process such as management responsibility, hazard analysis, resource management and document control of procedures, policies and records.
The company says requests for GFSI-benchmarked audits have been quickly growing.
Ernst says that many large retailers and foodservice industry brands are calling for this type of certification as a pre-requisite to doing business.
