Plastilene Inc.: SQF Food Safety “Excellent” rating

Plastilene Inc. began the process of designing and implementing the SQF (Safe Quality Food) system at the beginning of 2023, thus guaranteeing products safety that the company manufacture for food industry.

In terms of food safety regulations, Plastilene Group is constantly undergoing certification processes in countries such as Colombia and Guatemala, with application of ISO22000 and FSSC22000 standards, respectively.

Now it is the turn of our new plant in the United States, a country where SQF meets the highest worldwide food standards, aligned with international regulations of GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) organization.

According with Yohana García´s own words, leader of the Sustainable Portfolio, “SQF allows us to have a complete look at each process, such as selecting suppliers, product design and development, internal plant operation and logistical aspects, each of them under a clerk´s responsibility of guaranteeing packaging safety that will be delivered to our customers. And since our focus in North America is food, it was very necessary to do so, this being our first SQF-certified plant.

We highlight the “Excellent” rating of 98/100 obtained in this 1st process before the certifying body in the United States, which denotes the vast experience we bring from our plants in Latin America, our whole team´s great professionalism and close collaboration with our customers.

Our Plastilene Inc. plant has been open for less than 6 months and, of course, we needed to be certified to meet all of our customers’ needs regarding food industry. We decided to conduct a pre-audit prior to the certifying body visit and this way identifying some opportunities for improvement.

A couple of months later, we implemented in record time all the corrective actions for the NSF organization official audit. In fact,

“the auditor herself said she was surprised seeing that we were able to solve nonconformities, findings and possible risks in such a ‘neat’ way,” Yohana recalls.

In a similar vein, Diana González, commercial director of Plastilene Inc. adds that the improvements amount was no small feat at all. The challenge was truly gigantic. So much so that the auditor, who has many years of experience in plastics industry, indicated that she did not think we would be able to make the adjustments in such a short time, but she was pleasantly surprised.

Hygiene and safety processes of Plastilene Inc. have reached a very high level, in compliance with food legislation for all types of packaging manufacture. Said result was possible due to commitment and teamwork where leaders of processes and management systems at corporate level, were involved.

During these months of preparation, we took advantage of the opportunity to train our personnel in Guatemala, the United States and Colombia in all SQF regulations and process systems, which include, as a novelty, very specific functions to guarantee strict control by those responsible for each process.

Our plant continues to grow and from now on #PlastileneCommitment with future production lines is that all of them will get a SQF certificate, which recertification must be performed every 12 months.