French manufacturers of complete and supplementary feed products have chosen to pool their control results by family to reinforce the health safety of their production. OQUALIM is the structure that houses this initiative.
It is mandatory to set up adequate self-monitoring plans, however, it is difficult to show that a plan is adequate at a company level. Collective experience can help. Pooling increases the effectiveness of research, as shown by Canon and Roe's statistical laws. To construct an effective and strengthened safety net, OQUALIM participants contribute in a complementary way to conduct analyses for optimum coverage of raw materials. The results are then shared.
"The strength of our pooled plan is to check more raw materials across a larger number of criteria, in order to collectively guarantee food safety, " summarised Jean-Louis Zwick during his chairmanship.
In addition to being a collective response to a regulatory requirement, by monitoring the health status of animal feed in real time, OQUALIM offers a reactive alert tool that contributes to safeguarding the animal production sector. The choice has been made to check the feed product mainly through the raw feed materials from which it is made, based on the finding that raw materials are the source of most contaminants. The rule is not to substitute for suppliers' primary duty to place only products fit for purpose on the market. Pooled plans are second-level checks. The plans focus on contaminants concerned by regulations, undesirable substances, salmonella on raw materials and on contaminants for which the regulatory thresholds differ between Raw Materials and Finished Products such as mycotoxins, contaminants linked to or sensitive to the process: microbiological or coccidiostatic agents.
"The existence of pooled plans has enabled progress to be made in contaminant analysis practices both at manufacturers and their suppliers, " explains Michel Layus, Vice-Chairman of OQUALIM.
The results of the pooled self-monitoring plans feed into an annual risk analysis. This professional risk analysis is reproduced in the Guide of Best Practices in Animal Nutrition, to which the certification reference refers.
This type of approach is quoted in the ANSES Tool sheet - Dangers associated with Animal Feed.
The pooled self-monitoring plans have demonstrated their usefulness
To monitor the quality and feed safety, OQUALIM has set up a pooling approach for monitoring actions based on the risk of contamination of feed materials and finished products. All of these initiatives have one final objective : managing quality, safety and traceability from the feed materials intended for the feed of livestock, in order to better guarantee the health quality of the animal products.
Aims of the pooled self-monitoring plans :
Define a sufficient self-monitoring plan at the profession level.
Monitor the quality of the feed materials used in the territory, by providing a real-time overview to
the participants with the possibility of individual reactions in the event of an alert.
Be an observatory for substances that are undesirable for feed.
The strengths of the system recognised by all players and beneficiaries :
Monitoring modalities focusing on the exploitation of pooled self-monitoring results on feed materials and finished products, carried out by companies in a pooled framework with the continuous search for efficiency.
Clear targets and monitoring modalities supported by a good level of formalisation of monitoring rules and procedures.
Very high levels of monitoring achievement, which show the backing and strong acceptance of professionals for the system and its operations.
A history of over 10 years of operations, based on stable relationships between partners.
Good monitoring coverage thanks to the massive participation of premixes and complete or supplementary compound feed manufacturers.
A key involvement of laboratories in the system, which is based on conventions and documented requirements.
An alert system for the community in the event of detection corresponding to a first category hazard.
Dynamic internal communications for the system, with the diffusion of regular operational reports.
Centralised databases, with secure access, that provide results monitoring to each participating company.
Tangible achievements carried out with the professional feed manufacturer environment:
- Participation in the monitoring of the health quality of French cereals and oilseed sector, in partnership with the sector monitoring plans. Monitoring in line with the regulatory changes and specific needs of animal species, as you can see in the mycotoxin articles in the central pages,
- Data available to feed European studies, as in 2019 for dioxins (article on the last page of Journal on monitoring plans edition May 2020),
- Active participation in the national platform of surveillance of the food chain (SCA Platform), which notably enabled participation in the assessment of the salmonella monitoring system (OASIS assessment by the ANSES as part of the ONDES working group); the results of the study will be published in 2020, but the findings on the system's efficiency are already encouraging and provide constructive ideas for moving forward,
- Exploratory analyses targeted on elements that are unregulated in feed according to the specific concerns of the animal production sectors.
Objectives that have been fully achieved by the plans serving manufacturers of premixes and compound feed, for the overall benefit of the health quality of animal products.
For more informations about OQUALIM's pooled self-monitoring plans, view the last OQUALIM's journal published.