26th January 2007
Cranswick Country Foods, one of the UK’s fastest growing food groups has appointed Bodycote Health Sciences Food and Consumer Products division as its sole external testing laboratory, offering a range of services to include web based reporting, laboratory support and technical advice. This is a strategic development for Cranswick to outsource all its testing to a nationally based external laboratory.
With 10 modern production sites involved in all aspects of the meat business from primary processing, retail packaging, sausage and cooked meat production as well as importing specialist continental meat and pasta products, Cranswick Country Foods has a turnover of circa £500m and major retail, foodservice and food manufacturing customers. Bodycote will perform the independent testing as well as giving advice and technical support to the company’s technical team and in-house laboratories.
Cranswick’s sites all operate to a high degree of technical competency all sites holding Grade A rating against the BRC standard. Bodycote has started work with Cranswick’s The Sandwich Factory based at Atherstone in the Midlands where samples are now registered electronically and results received through a web-based reporting system that allows the technical team to sort, find and trend information in a variety of ways. The system will be rolled out to the remaining sites in the first quarter of this year.
Andrew Caines, Group Technical Director, Cranswick Country Foods plc said:
“We discussed our requirements with a number of the UK’s leading laboratories but it was the Bodycote team who impressed us with their professional approach to the tendering process.
“They came up with a competitively priced independent testing proposal designed to under pin the testing carried out within our own laboratories, and which provides quick access to results through a web based data management system. What really made the Bodycote proposal different was that it was supported with an industry recognised technical advisory service which will help keep the Cranswick technical team up to date with the latest food safety and legislation developments, which is a priority for our business.”
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