Our Priority: Food Safety & Quality
Our facilities are dedicated to the highest standards of food safety and quality.
To meet this commitment, we have chosen the Safe Quality Foods (SQF) Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) compliant food safety certification process.
We are also fully compliant with hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) standards.
We pride ourselves in maintaining strict food safety and hygiene standards.
Compliance is measured through an extensive audit of each facility by certified third party auditors. Additionally, our facilities go the extra mile and are certified for not only SQF Food Safety compliance but also Food Quality compliance which is above and beyond GFSI requirements.
These comprehensive SQF required programs are routinely evaluated by our facilities for continual improvement and updating with the latest technology and cutting-edge processes. This aligns with a key requirement of SQF certification, which is routinely updating and trending program results geared toward continual improvement.
A key SQF requirement and comprehensive part of our facilities food safety and quality programs is the continual monitoring of key areas including:
- Temperature control
- Plant cleanliness and sanitation
- Good employee hygiene
- Food safety chemical control
- Product labeling
- Product identity
- Pest control
- Food defense, which includes security measures such as controlled access, vulnerability assessments, and many other programs.
The FSQA staff also handles interacting with government regulators who routinely assess the facilities for compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
For instance, our meat & poultry companies in Canada and the U.S. are not allowed to operate without federal inspectors from the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service or Canadian Food Inspection Agency in the plant daily.
Our plants go through a rigorous daily cleaning and sanitizing of all food production surfaces. We follow that up with routine sampling of the processing environment to verify the cleanliness of our plants.
From the supplier to the plate, our companies maintain a safety and quality level, including physical audits of supplier plants.
Only approved suppliers’ raw materials are eligible for processing into Sysco products, and the Sysco Quality Assurance team routinely visits our suppliers for an inspection of plant practices and procedures.
Prior to products being shipped, each truck must pass a rigorous inspection for cleanliness and temperature control.
We encourage you to take a look at facility reports for each facility.