Addressing Food Safety Challenges During COVID-19

In her role as a senior quality assurance officer with DSM, Joell Springer spends the majority of her time performing audits. “I am responsible for auditing suppliers of our raw materials, packaging, lab testing services and more. During a normal year, I am traveling every week and conducting upwards of 60 audits a year,” she said. Since COVID-19 started, Joell’s day-to-day has had to change drastically. “Now I am conducting virtual audits about once a month. When Partners in Food Solutions (PFS) approached me with an opportunity to help Juaben Oil Mills improve their quality management system, I thought it would be a great way for me to spend my extra time and help others while doing what I love.”

Juaben Oil Mills, a palm oil producer in the Ashanti region of Ghana, decided to work toward a food safety certification under the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s Global Quality and Standards program. “It’s very important to us to have an improved quality management system (QMS) as it helps us coordinate our operations to better satisfy our customers and meet all our regulatory requirements,” said Kwame Adomako, sustainability officer at Juaben Oil Mills. “As part of the palm oil supply chain, we would like to see an improvement in our operations. By partnering with PFS we have access to a great deal of resources and expertise to help us tackle the pressing issues as a growing company in the palm oil industry,” he continued.

To date, Joell and the volunteer team have reviewed Juaben Oil Mill’s existing documentation relating to its quality system. After realizing the documents were not up to standard, the project team helped the client develop a new documentation control and management plan. Based on the plan, over 200 policies and forms have been created and reviewed, and the client keeps developing new procedures for their business. “To us, volunteers from PFS are like staff we never hired, but they contribute just as much to our operations in a very special way,” Kwame said. “Thanks to this partnership, we are on our way to being a significant player in the edible oil processing industry.”