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QS Insights | ANUGA
2015
SYSTEMATIC QUALITY ASSURANCE
Understanding the QS scheme
QS has been ensuring food safety since 2001 – from farm to shop. A total of 95 percent of
the pork and poultry products produced in Germany originate from QS certified companies.
The corresponding figure for beef is 80 percent. 79,000 livestock farmers are part of the
QS scheme. The common goal is to implement a consistent system of self-assessment
and to provide a comprehensive system for process assurance and the verification of
product origins. This includes producers of fresh fruit, vegetables and potatoes.
Within the QS scheme, they produce safe food according to precisely defined
requirements supported by all prior and subsequent stages of production.
Cross-border quality assurance
When it comes to the cross-border
transport of goods, QS scheme partici-
pants can rely on compliancewith high
quality standards and full traceability.
In recent years, QS further extended
its cooperation with other standard
owners in order to ensure comparable
Europe-wide standards for the quality
assurance of meat and feed as well as
in the area of livestock farming.
QS currently has contractswith 16 other
standard owners in eight European
countries. They have now all entered
into a commitment to introduce random
audits based on the requirements of the
QS scheme. In addition, QShas success-
fully lobbied for the introduction of a
central incident and crisismanagement
system.
“
The mutual agreements on
standards play a decisive role in ensur-
ing internationally comparable quality
assurance,” explains QS Managing
Director Dr. Hermann-Josef Nienhoff.
“This guarantees the high availability
of goods of a secured quality level
while avoiding additional costs due to
duplicate audit processes.”
You can find out more on page 4.
3.
Slaughterhouse
• Hygiene
• Cooling
• Meat juice samples
• Accompanying
documents
2.
Farmer
• Water quality
• Shed climate
• Animal health
• Documentation
4.
Butcher
• Hygiene
• Refrigeration
• Labelling
• Storage
• Accompanying
documents
The method
Consumers who buy fresh produce at su-
permarkets want to be sure that strict
requirements are met with regard to the
production process from farm to shop. The
same applies to hygiene and maintaining
the cold chain. The blue QS certification
mark which appears on meat and meat
productsandon fruit, vegetables
and potatoes represents safety
andprovides the consumerwith
clear information.
Reliable and comprehensible
All products with the QS cer-
tification mark are produced,
processed and marketed ac-
cording to clearly defined requirements.
These requirements are set out jointly
by all production stages involved. Each
scheme partner commits himself to imple-
menting extensive documentation and
self-monitoringmeasures. Compliancewith
requirements ismonitored by independent
certification bodies. The entire
QSscheme’s integrity isensured
by constant internalmonitoring.
This includes verifying thework
of certification bodies, evaluat-
ingall audit reports in thecentral
database,witnessingauditsand
carrying out additional random
sample audits.
109,104
partners from 21 countries
are part of
the
meat and meat product supply chain
.
31%
of consumers
consciously buy
goods with the QS certification mark.
95%
of German pork and poultry
and
80% of German beef
is produced
in companies with QS certification.
100%
of German compound feed producers
participate in the QS scheme.
1.62 million
samples
were
examined as part of the
QS salmonella
monitoring programme
in 2014.
2,236
veterinarians
are registered with the
QS antibiotics monitoring
programme
. Based on the data provided by them, a
reliable therapy index
can
be compiled for
90% of all farms with pigs, veal calves, chickens and turkeys
.