POLOKWANE – The Capricorn Municipality’s Environmental Health Department provided the company with an official Certificate of Acceptability for the Polokwane factory on 6 December after rigorous assessments were completed, giving the company licence to resume production.
This certificate endorses the factory’s standards and operating procedures for the safe production of food products. the products will be found again on your store’s shelves, albeit cloaked in a slightly different packaging.
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The very popular factory shop, however, is said not to have opened its doors again, but will only do so next year by the end of March, as the current building is to be rebuilt.
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Underpinning the decision to open the factory is the firmer guidance provided to the industry on safety standards for the production of ready-to-eat chilled processed meats.
“The Department of Health has referred the industry to the Codex standard, which states that for finished ready-to-eat products which promote growth of the bacteria, there must be zero listeria detection in products, both as they leave the factories as well as to the point of sale,” says Lawrence Mac Dougall, Tiger Brands’ CEO in a press release issued last week.
Furthermore, the industry has agreed to mandatory implementation of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points HACCP protocol, which is a Food Safety Management programme.
Mac Dougall commented: “Enterprise Foods has gone a step further to providing product safety assurance to all its consumers. It has introduced a revolutionary 7-Step Quality Check process which creates transparency to consumers across the entire farm-to-table value chain in the production of quality meat products and give the assurance to all South Africans – whether they eat our products or not – that the food safety system is robust”.
“The Centre for Food Safety, which we launched in collaboration with the Stellenbosch University on 6 November, is a critical milestone in this quest.”
Tiger Brands is the founding member of the Centre for Food Safety and has dedicated R10 million to the centre’s operations.
Introducing the Centre for Food Safety pic.twitter.com/sWYFtVF2Sc
— Tiger Brands (@TigerBrands) November 6, 2018
The polony-producing Polokwane plant was named as the source of the world’s most deadly listeriosis outbreak earlier this year in March.
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The announcement comes just three days after the Johannesburg High Court granted an order, certifying a class action against Tiger Brands, which will determine whether the company is liable for the listeriosis outbreak.
The legal case relies on the fact that the outbreak strain of listeria monocytogenes, which infected 91% of the people who died‚ was found at the Enterprise factory in Polokwane.
MacDougall stressed last Thursday: “No liability has been established against the company for the listeriosis outbreak. The legal process of the class action must still take its course,” he said.
Of the 1 065 confirmed cases of listeriosis that were contracted, only 150 are currently represented by the two firms of attorneys.
