Partnering with a reliable food inspection company is crucial to your business’s success, compliance, and reputation among customers. As you know, one food recall or overlooked foreign material in your food products can have drastic consequences, ranging from a diminished reputation in your market to complete business shutdowns or even civil liability.
With the right food inspection partner, you gain peace of mind that your food products are consistent, high in quality, and safe. But how do you identify a trusted partner and narrow your options?
Review these qualities to look for when choosing the right food inspection partner.
Industry Experience and Expertise
For your food inspection partner to provide reliable services and technology, they must understand the food production industry from top to bottom. While this might seem like a given, not everyone will be knowledgeable about your specific industry.
Thoroughly comprehending food safety and manufacturing laws is the bare minimum requirement for any food inspection partner you’re considering. However, having a high level of technical expertise and industry experience can instill even more confidence that the company will ensure the safety and quality of your food products.
Technical Expertise
The company you choose should showcase its expertise in food inspection technology and equipment by thoroughly detailing how each piece of equipment operates and benefits your company. Listing the specifications and features of each machine and providing case studies of their effectiveness can help you feel confident that the company knows what it’s doing.
Training
Your food inspection partner should also provide thorough, in-depth training for using all its equipment. Your partner should install the equipment for you, set it up, and train all relevant employees so that they feel comfortable operating the equipment. Ideally, they will also offer remote supplemental training whenever you need assistance to prevent operator errors from impacting your product quality.
Customization
Companies with the requisite expertise and an in-depth understanding of food safety can customize their services and offerings to meet your needs. Checkweighers, metal detectors, and X-ray inspection systems aren’t one-size-fits-all machines. These companies must be able to program them for your food products and manufacturing processes.
Regulatory Compliance Knowledge
When choosing the right food inspection partner for your business, you must ensure the organization thoroughly understands and adheres to food compliance protocols. After all, its machinery must instantly identify whether your food products are compliant.
Certification
The company you choose should know the HACCP certification process inside and out. HACCP certification involves implementing specific food safety measures and eliminating hazards. Whether your business is legally mandated to receive HACCP certification or not, your inspection partner should be well-versed in this process to ensure its systems and machines adequately promote food safety.
Along with understanding the certifications necessary for food manufacturers, your inspection partner should certify all its equipment according to nationally recognized standards. Certifying and calibrating equipment ensures it performs optimally within your manufacturing processes and experiences no malfunctions that could impact product quality.
Advanced Technology and Tools
While your food inspection partner should offer excellent support, expertise, and experience, its actual tools and technologies should be top-notch. You should feel the utmost confidence in the technology your inspection partner installs for your business.
Ease of Use With Clear User Interface
Food inspection systems can range in complexity from user-friendly to challenging to navigate. For your business to get any benefits from an inspection system, your workers should be able to easily navigate its interface after a small amount of introductory training from your food inspection partner.
Inspection companies should provide walkthroughs or demos of their systems prior to your purchase, allowing you to get a feel for the operation. If you think your team may have trouble using the system correctly, it may cause more hassle than it is worth.
Remote Support
Even the best inspection technologies occasionally malfunction because of operator error, interferences, or other outside causes. But the right food inspection partner will ensure these issues don’t disrupt your operations for long. They will be available to provide remote support whenever you need it—even on weekends and holidays—and will troubleshoot your issues efficiently.
Future Updates
Your food inspection partner should also have the technical capabilities to remotely roll out updates to your systems. Software upgrades can eliminate bugs and technical issues that arise over time, allowing your equipment to continue performing optimally.
Flexibility and Support
The support you receive from a food inspection partner shouldn’t end once they’re done installing your equipment. Rather, the right food inspection partner will maintain an open-door policy, allowing for ongoing communication, assistance, and support. This quality separates average inspection companies from those that go above and beyond for their clients.
Delivery Commitments
At the start of your food inspection partnership, the company should communicate when you can expect to receive your new equipment. Committing to a specific delivery date and time can allow you to prepare for the equipment’s arrival and avoid downtime adequately.
Reliability and Responsiveness
You should never have trouble getting ahold of a customer service agent or seeking answers to questions. Instead, your partner should be easy to contact, have minimal or no hold times, and quickly provide the necessary answers or resources to get back to business.
Customer Service
Be sure to examine a company’s customer service skills and offerings before partnering with it. The best food inspection companies offer crisis support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They also have several communication methods, such as phone, instant chat, and email.
When you speak with the customer service agents from your food inspection company, they should be friendly and knowledgeable while maintaining confidentiality and security. All customer service agents should be trained in the company’s food inspection systems.
Continuous Support and Maintenance
Your food inspection partner should also have a system in place to provide ongoing support and maintenance for your inspection systems. For example, they may provide a workmanship warranty on all their systems and parts and offer remote and on-site support.
Those providing on-site repairs should guarantee quick turnaround times, regardless of your business’s location in the U.S.
Cost and Pricing
Food inspection companies should be transparent about their equipment and service costs. You shouldn’t have to wonder how your overall costs will change with different features and add-ons. You should also be able to receive a detailed, accurate quote that reflects your ultimate purchase price.
Reliable food inspection partners have dedicated sales departments that streamline the sales process. You can contact these individuals to request a quote, discuss the different inspection systems available, and receive personalized support throughout your purchase.
Reputation and References
Finally, when choosing the right food inspection partner, reputation is key. The best inspection companies have overwhelmingly positive reputations within the food production industry, receiving glowing reviews across platforms like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Trustpilot.
As a final measure of authenticity, you may decide to contact past and current clients of a food inspection company to ask about their experiences with the company. Hearing that a client had a top-tier experience can seal your confidence in your new food inspection partner.
TDI Packsys: Your Trusted Food Inspection Partner
At TDI Packsys, we’re proud to provide all the above benefits and more for food manufacturers. Our top-of-the-line inspection equipment meets strict compliance protocols to ensure the safety of your food products and minimal disruption to your operations.
We prioritize speed and service through remote and in-person support, and our 48-hour boots-on-the-ground guarantee ensures that you will receive in-person assistance as quickly as possible—anywhere in the world.
With our commitment to quality and communication, we make choosing the right food inspection partner simple. Contact TDI Packsys today at 877-834-6750 to learn more about our food inspection equipment or request a quote.
