St. Charles trading's audit is a complete success!
The other week held an incredibly important event St. Charles Trading, Inc.’s corporate headquarters in Elgin, IL. What was it? The annual SQF audit. As an SQF-certified facility, St. Charles Trading (SCT) is required to perform an audit once a year. This audit is a two-day ordeal that approves the facility and operations as “safe quality food.” It is extremely important to St. Charles Trading to conform to the highest standards and provide the highest quality products to its customers.
What is a SQF audit?
According to their website, retailers, brand owners, and food service providers worldwide recognize the Safe Quality Food (SQF) Program.
What does this audit mean for St. Charles Trading, Inc.?
St. Charles Trading, Inc. is a SQF-certified facility. In addition, we have rigorous regulations in place to make sure that all materials coming in and going out of its facilities are in paramount condition. The SCT Quality Assurance (QA) team is top of the line and focuses year-round on maintaining SQF requirements throughout the entire premises.
This year, St. Charles Trading, Inc. achieved an “excellent” rating with a score of 96 out of 100 total available points. Emphatically, it is important to mention that St. Charles Trading has received an “excellent” score each consecutive year that they have been at their Elgin, IL location, for four years.
What changed since the last SQF audit in 2020?
St. Charles Trading (SCT) is now SQF edition 9.0 compliant! SQF changed some of its regulations and released the update early summer of 2021. Since the audit just recently happened at SCT, they are compliant with those updates.
Furthermore, there are a significant amount of production changes that St. Charles Trading, Inc. had to develop protocols and workflows for:
- Expanded the scope from just processing to both processing and production for blending.
- Added allergens in the blending process.
- Implemented two new production rooms.
- New blending protocols and new blending processes require a higher degree of food safety and HACCP considerations.
- “HACCP is a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement, and handling, to manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of the finished product.”
- Expansion of modules required to follow under the SQF code.
- New racking that requires additional cleaning preventative maintenance and processes.
- The addition of the new racking brings along a whole new cleaning procedure as well as a higher level of food storage. As great as bringing in more items is, it also means that we need to check items for maintenance more frequently.
- The St. Charles Trading, Inc. Team is immensely proud of its efforts to not only meet the SQF standards but to continue growing, improving, and bringing the best product to all customers and partners.
About St. Charles Trading, Inc.
St. Charles Trading, Inc. is a WBENC-Certified WBE and global supply chain solutions provider specializing in food ingredients distribution since 1984. With worldwide sourcing and international logistic capabilities, St. Charles Trading, Inc. prides itself on delivering excellent customer service from initial inquiry to final product delivery. Combine excellent scores on the SQF audit for 4 years running with the highest quality products and you end up with St. Charles Trading, the secret ingredient that you will want to tell everyone about. For more information go to STCHARLESTRADING.COM
