Santa Monica Seafood, a family-owned and operated company founded in 1939, is the largest specialty wholesale distributor of fresh and frozen seafood in the southwestern US. In November of this year, they became the first seafood company in the United States, to be certified to FSSC 22000.
According to Betty Cordero, Santa Monica Seafood's Food Safety Manager, "The FSSC 22000 system is our 'roadmap' to managing the food safety aspects of our daily operations to ensure high quality as well as safe and wholesome product delivery to our customers based on international standards and requirements."
Michael Cigliano, Santa Monica Seafood’s Executive Vice President commented “FSSC 22000 certification reinforces our commitment to our customers’ safety and confirms our position as a leader in the seafood industry”.
Certification to FSSC 22000 enables continuous improvement of food safety efficiency for a company. Certification to the FSSC22000 standard provides a company with a powerful management system framework. It is fully consistent with all relevant ISO standards.
“Santa Monica Seafood, with their strong focus on quality in products and processes, is an excellent example of how DNV Business Assurance can support its customers – offering complementary services such as food safety and Marine Stewardship Council Chain of Custody”, says Guro Meldre-Pedersen, DNV Business Assurance Global Seafood Coordinator.
A food safety certified company proves commitment to continual focus on quality and food safety improvement, resulting in sustainable business performance and safe products for the consumer.
What is GFSI and FSSC 22000?
The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) was launched in 2000, in an effort to restore the consumer confidence and ensure consumer food safety protection. As defined on the GFSI site, ‘GFSI benchmarks existing food standards against food safety criteria, and also looks to develop mechanisms to exchange information in the supply chain, to raise consumer awareness and to review existing good retail practices.’
FSSC 22000 is one of the benchmarked standards within the GFSI umbrella, and is a food safety management system certification scheme based on ISO 22000 and PAS 220. This benchmarked standard was developed to help secure food safety standards within the production process of the supply chain.