8. Supplier management
Are supplier assessment questionnaires getting out of control?
Are you getting frustrated by the length and complexity of the supplier questionnaires that you’re being asked to complete?
One of our readers got in touch with us this week, after receiving another questionnaire that was 40 plus pages which contained questions, such as:
Are monkeys used for harvesting coconuts?
Have any of your animals been castrated?
While we can all probably appreciate why they’re being asked these questions, it’s still annoying when they don’t apply, and it detracts the focus from the important questions.
Going back to basics
The original purpose of a supplier questionnaire was to ensure that a supplier was compliant, where you couldn’t approve them any other way.
If a supplier has a GFSI recognised certification, then a supplier questionnaire shouldn’t be necessary.
With detail comes complexity
However, as retailer requirements, legislation and certification standards become more detailed, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to approve a supplier with just an audit certificate. This has led to additional requirements being put into questionnaires where they’re now just getting longer and more complex.
There must be a better way
It would make sense for businesses to provide answers to these questions, so that their customers can use this detail. This could be provided in a preapproved document – however, this would mean that the customer must do more work to look for the answers and populate their own systems.
Without the use of software, the only way to simplify the process would be to have one set way of doing questionnaires – where all businesses follow the same standard.
This would require every business to use the same format of questionnaire and where one business needs a question adding, everyone would need to update their format. The likelihood of businesses doing this is pretty much nil.
Conclusion – what’s your thoughts?
So unfortunately, it would seem that lengthy questionnaires, which contain questions which seem irrelevant are here to stay. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a bit of a moan about them and compare the strangest questions that we’ve been asked – it might even provide some unexpected amusement which we all need every now and then!
Put your thoughts in the comments box below, let’s see who should get the prize for the most irrelevant question!
Let’s be honest, most bigger food manufacturers are using almost the same templates for specifications and questionnaires. I saw people moving from one big ready meals manufacturer to another (if you know you know) and vice versa and we would get identical SAQ’s to complete just coloured differently, templates are copied and re-used when people move so the industry might as well look into unifying them all to make everyone’s life easier…
I agree that the SAQ with no ability to bypass large sections if you hold a GFSI certification is unwanted. However, I do not believe that the SAQ will get shorter any time soon. As others have said, they are more often used today as an information source rather than an approval mechanism, and this now includes an increasingly large number of questions concerning the ethical trading and welfare management of the company. Lengthy SAQ’s are here to stay I’m afraid.
I work in a research center and food analysis is also carried out. We received a typical supplier evaluation questionnaire for a manufacturing company, and no matter how many times I wrote to them informing them that we are ISO 17025 accredited for food testing, they insisted and in the end I had to fill out the questionnaire, putting for each question: not applicable, not applicable, …
I totally agree, that non-UK based suppliers will not allow transfer of documentation. The number of times a HACCP plan / risk assessment or allergen policy, or cleaning validation is deemed as ‘confidential’ or not allowed to be viewed by anyone other than the GFSI auditor is amazingly numerous. – This info is only requested to be seen prior to taking an ingredient, so the process can progress further for a new supplier or new ingredient / substitution contingency. Issues with supply chain due to the world market is making life interesting (difficult). In this case this suppliers get passed over if it no forthcoming documentation at this starting point. This info check is because we understand completing an SAQ and Ing spec may be wasting a suppliers time and ours. When decided to progress, the full documentation is required. Certification for BRC/GFSI should have skip button functions, understanding that it is not necessary to repeat what you have been audited against, but documentation needs to back this up.
If this can not be seen prior to taking an ingredient in to assess, what are they hiding. I really don’t understand what and why anyone wants to hide what helps promote products – food safety is what we are about. We have enough evidence that transparency on food safety surely helps, history shows us controls are required, very recently the ‘salad’ and then ‘mustard’ issues.
The benefit of having SAQ’s on a data base, is that searching is easy – C.O.O, manufactures, specific ingredients, quite a list. Imagine having a couple of hundred different SAQ or Ing specs to look through in so many different formats, not searchable as attachments- pdf’s, different terminology, progression with databases requires structure/formatting. Yes we have to ask the Monkey question, would you like to be the monkey that is chained up, not fed, no shelter, worked for 24 hrs a day. The world is much smaller, Internationally different cultures see animals in different ways, these ingredients are not just used in Vegan products! I do not specifically mind if chickens are fed on soya though. I don’t like the way we are moving but I understand why there is the need. There may be a smarter way but at present this is the way. No one has mentioned Sedex or SMETA audits …
We get around this problem (at least with the great majority of our customers) by the use of Technical Information Packs which we provide in the form of a ZIP file and each is tailored to the customer and product in question. These packs contains all the information a customer is likely to ask about and only take about 10 minutes to put together.
We’ve been doing it this way for years and it works brilliantly.
Of course, there are some customers who will never accept anything but their own documentation, so will still have to bear up to the occasional nasty questionnaire!
We are a small company dealing solely with low moisture, ambient products and were FSSC 22000 certified in 2012 in the hope that customer SAQs would no longer be necessary, as we don’t produce for retail. Well, that didn’t work for sure and very, very few customers give us the opportunity to skip most of the questionnaire as we do when asking our suppliers to complete our SAQ. We are now also dealing with 7 different platforms in the UK, Europe and the US, with one particular platform taking 6 solid hours – I am not joking – to complete one questionnaire for one single item. I personally find the work tedious, mind numbing and downright demeaning and it is taking from the time I require to deal with “proper” work. BRC can’t be the only reason for the level of detail and transparency being asked, as US BRC certified companies don’t ask for anywhere near the amount of information that UK customers do.
Don’t get me going… We are a small company dealing solely with low moisture, ambient products and were FSSC 22000 certified in 2012 in the hope that customer SAQs would no longer be necessary, as we don’t produce for retail. Well, that didn’t work for sure and very, very few customers give us the opportunity to skip most of the questionnaire as we do when asking our suppliers to complete our SAQ. We are now also dealing with 7 different platforms in the UK, Europe and the US, with one particular platform taking 6 solid hours – I am not joking – to complete one questionnaire for one single item. I personally find the work tedious, mind numbing and downright demeaning and it is taking from the time I require to deal with “proper” work. BRC can’t be the only reason for the level of detail and transparency being asked, as US BRC certified companies don’t ask for anywhere near the amount of information that UK customers do.
I built our approval process around how much i hate the SAQ’s we get asked to do. We send out an initial questionnaire, which asks for the supplier details, accreditation details, T&V supply chain and allergens / packaging compliance. A lot of this can be skipped if they have GFSI accreditation.
If the accreditation is not available we follow up with a specific questionnaire (Manufacturer / Agent / warehouse distribution), these questionnaires are as short and simple as possible and are based on the relevant BRCGS standards. Our suppliers seem happy with this system and it means we don’t cause too much bother to accredited suppliers as they have already put the work in. I have developed a documentation pack and will accept a documentation pack in place of a questionnaire.
My biggest bug bear is customers who want you to copy your specification into their own format or fill in their database on their behalf, we are a small company with a technical team of two, while I am busy replicating information into your format I am not concentrating on running our food safety systems and getting behind in my own work. I just wont do it anymore. I will provide all the information a customer wants but their forms and databases are their choice and responsibility
The question that might be asked is ‘ What use is made by suppliers of all that extra info supplied?’ My experience says ‘NONE’! They will never have the time or even inclination to analyse it! The KISS principle always applies!
We seem to have forgotten that having achieved certified standards most questionnaires should be redundant.
I’m old enough to remember the trend of questionnaires that started with have you got ISO 9001/BRC etc. etc. then tick here and move straight to the signature part of the document. Include a copy of your certificate.
Sadly, the trend in the last five years has been to revert to long questionnaires without fast-track options.
Is it laziness or ignorance that has produced this result (even from some of our more respected institutions)?
The ‘original’ intention of the (former) BRC Certification was that it was to be the ‘Ultimate Audit’ that meant that we would see all supermarkets and customers accepting one independent audit and certificate.
Sadly, here we are, some 30 years later and we have even more audits and questionnaires than ever and many customers now see BRCGS as the starting point that they then embellish with their own endless extra requirements.
I don’t think that its laziness or ignorance that has driven things, but the ongoing expectation that the BRCGS standard develops and continuously improves in its own right. That said, many major organisations see BRCGS certification as the benchmark and then add all their own Brand protection requirements in order to maintain market share and/or a point of difference.
At least a couple of times in the past 25+ years I have sat on committees or working groups that have endeavoured to gain traction in embedding consistency in specification formats or audit/certification formats but alas there is little appetite for such initiatives with the majority of the big retailers unless it saves them money on the product base cost from which they can make even bigger margins. Plus-ca-change.
In terms of the ‘monkeys’ issue, I encountered this a couple of years ago.
Unless one is producing (and claiming) a product to be vegan, it is irrelevant!!
Sometimes, I do offer up a small prayer that after 47 years in our wonderful industry, that retirement is on the horizon and I can leave all the bull*** behind.
I’ve worked with retailers in the past and my impression has always been that most SAQs are driven from the end user under the guise of transparency rather than a compliance point of view.
People rightly want to know where their food has come from and we’re more aware than ever that the little details that were irrelevant before are more prevalent to the end consumer now and can drive their buying habits.
How can a technologist/purchaser working remotely disconnected from the daily running of manufactures etc offer guarantees on food safety, Integrity, sustainability / environmental and ethics without the information they need. SAQ offer a solution to this but are rarely built for the supplier and are generally one SAQ fits all.
I now help produce products business to business so sit in the middle, I send out SAQ and receive plenty. Some customers accept a document pack, and some customers accept ours but its far from the norm, most people seem to want to tick a box with a minimum amount of input.
Unfortunately, someone needs to put the effort in to allow the information to be available for the end user and the onus for that unfortunately almost always falls on the supplier; but id still rather complete an SAQ than be subject to numerous, unannounced retailer audits with equally as many nuances and cross over to the GFSI audits i already complete.
I feel that customers that use independent consultants to assist with their QMS and standards are particularly bad for unnecessary supplier approval processes.
We received a SAQ that was 18 pages long, all focusing on food safety & site standards – total spend by that customer over the previous 3 years averaged at just under £400! Their consultant was insistent that this had to be completed in full for us to continue supply, our GFSI certificate wasn’t considered by them! Crazy!!
However, with the increased focus on environmental and ethical aspects of a business I understand why more and more customers are expanding their SAQ’s to include questions around these areas
100% agree and in response I have just gone down the path of preparing a pre-prepared information booklet which I launched in November. Although some push back from customers has been experienced I am standing firm and continue to respond to all SAQ’s with this document and to date 100% success (statistics can be misleading so for full disclosure this is 3 out of 3). It is a great time saver!
Brilliant, I am sure these drive all of us mad. Especially some of the ones I get presented with considering we are low risk ambient storage and logistics.
Does anyone ever actually read them?
My favourite recently was actually a response from a supplier to receiving our ESG Code of Conduct to sign. Its a simple 3 page, read and sign, no onerous commitments. One IT services supplier had an amazing reply….:
“we levy a £250 fee for filling in and signing such forms”. It did get me wondering if I could do the same and turn myself into a profit centre 🙂
I have had this same questionnaire, or certainly the same questions. If it is the same, it’s also difficult to complete and is online.
What’s more is that these kin of questionnaires are usually checked by someone completely disconnected from reality at a third party company.
We are also seeing an increased number of Environmental or Ethical questionnaires being requested now too.
Ordinarily I can get past an SAQ for GFSI reasons with a dedicated quality information pack, the GFSI certificate, and an email. However this is still too much when the BRCGS standard states that only the GFSI certificate is required.
The SAQ information is mostly to allow Sites to fill in the Retailer portal and spec information and not to satisfy BRCGS requirements.
As Kassy has rightly stated – the SAQ is used to allow you to ensure the Supplier is compliant when they do not have GFSI – but that is only part of why Sites use them now. It’s quite rare for them to be used for just the Approval nowadays.
Indeed agree, however, whilst the BRCGS standard says a GFSI cert is sufficient, the retailers want SO much more and this is what drives 90% of the questions and there’s no way round this. I suspect it will only increase too, like you say, we are now seeing a demand for more detailed information for Ethical and Environmental. It can be particularly hard to get this information out of suppliers that are not UK based, and are not used to supplying this level of detail. I am not sure what the answer is but interested to hear other peoples ideas!