Quality
Royal Greenland applies the highest food safety standards to all aspects of our business.
Our global quality team makes sure that our products live up to the highest quality standards. Our main factories are all certified by BRC or IFS, and all factories have implemented strict HACCP procedures.
Quality management
As a company delivering high-quality seafood products, we apply the highest food safety standards to all aspects of our business, from catch, processing, packaging and distribution, to product development.
Our corporate quality department, and our local quality offices and laboratories, set the highest standards and work around the clock to ensure 100 % trustworthy quality products. The teams work closely together with authorities and customers to ensure that our production facilities live up to government food safety standards at any given time.
Quality management
The objective of Royal Greenland's Quality Management System is to manage quality from the sensory (taste, smell, appearance and consistency), food safety and regulatory points of view.
The Quality Management System fulfils the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) principles, which is a self-inspection system for the identification and assessment of hazards in food production. The system takes all possible hazards in the primary products and production into account. Control activities are established and monitoring programs are set up on the basis of in-depth assessments and regulations. The key aspect is to be completely familiar with the primary products used and to define the monitoring accordingly. The efficiency and implementation of the Quality Management System is verified by regular internal and external audits. Royal Greenland cooperates with several international certification bodies for this purpose.
Extensive training in hygiene and quality awareness
Royal Greenland's quality system is anchored in production, where our highly qualified and quality-conscious employees ensure that everything runs according to plan. Our quality department instructs in, monitors and follows up on new initiatives. At each plant, there is extensive training in hygiene and quality awareness for employees, to ensure the highest level of safety and control.
Supplier requirements
In order to ensure the best seafood in the world for our consumers, our suppliers and partners are subject to strict requirements.
At Royal Greenland, we make very exacting requirements of our suppliers and external partners. This is because we take responsibility for each individual product. This means that any supplier wishing to work with Royal Greenland must be prepared for exhaustive inspection.
Auditing and risk assessment of new partners
Our main suppliers and external partners are chosen on the basis of a risk assessment audit. Highly-qualified auditors perform the audit according to Royal Greenland's strict requirements. We believe that this is the best way to ensure maximum food safety for our products.
Before the audit, Royal Greenland always sends a detailed form to be completed by the potential external supplier. The completed form must then always be approved by Royal Greenland's Quality Department. The form is filed and used for subsequent documentation, as well as for our inspections at the supplier's site.
Inspections
In order to ensure that our suppliers maintain high standards, they are monitored regularly. Their products are monitored and checked at the local production site, in accordance with the supplier's HACCP plan. The supplier is obliged to report any deviations to Royal Greenland. In the event of any deviations, a new assessment is performed in order to decide on the next step.
Certification
Today, certification, both by NGOs and customers, is imperative, as an integrated element of our everyday operations. At Royal Greenland, we strive to make our production as sustainable and safe as possible, living up to the strict demands of the seafood industry of today. As a consequence, we have been awarded a number of certificates.
Supplier auditing
Supplier auditing has been a regular component of retail systems and procedures for many years, with the quality departments at the individual retailers and wholesalers performing these audits. But ever-increasing requirements from consumers, new obligations for retailers and wholesalers, stricter regulatory requirements and the globalisation of product delivery have made this task almost impossible. Retailers have therefore developed their own uniform standards for quality assurance and food safety. This has resulted in the following standards: the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the International Featured Standards (IFS).
Suppliers and enterprises seeking certification according to the IFS and the BRC standards are assessed by an independent certification body. In this way, all of the parties involved remain independent of each other. The certification body contributes to ensuring the credibility of the system and retailers can be confident that the system is consistent. It is not legally necessary to be certified, but the level of quality assurance is defined by the scope of the standard.
At Royal Greenland, we ensure the quality of our products through our own channels and by working with the authorities. We have also achieved certification of many of our products at various production sites. At Royal Greenland, we are continuously working to obtain more certifications.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
Unilever and the World Wildlife Foundation established the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in 1997. In 1999, the MSC was made independent of both organisations. The MSC environmental standards for sustainable fisheries are based on the FAO Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. The standard is constantly reviewed and monitored by an independent group of fisheries experts from around the world. The MSC standard is based on three principles: sustainable fishing, minimising environmental impact and effective control.
An MSC-certified company has the right to use the characteristic blue logo on their MSC-certified seafood products. The purpose of the logo is to help consumers choose companies that support sustainable fisheries.
The MSC certification is valid for five years. During this period, the plant will be visited at least once a year in order to ensure that it continues to meet the MSC standard.
