Sabinsa now holds a Bureau Veritas ISO 22000 Certification for its Kunigal plant near Bangalore – a plant that gained GMP certification from NSF International earlier this year.
“Today there is an increased emphasis on the quality and safety of ingredients used in dietary supplements and foods,” said Sabinsa founder Dr Muhammed Majeed.
“At the same time, most companies are now sourcing ingredients globally, making it more difficult to audit supplier facilities personally. We realize that clearly demonstrating Sabinsa’s commitment to the highest manufacturing standards, with third party verification, assists our customers in meeting their ingredient needs with confidence.”
The ISO 22000:2005 standard was developed by International Standards Organisation in 2005 and outlines food safety practices that among other things, “communicate food safety issues to their suppliers, customers and relevant interested parties in the food chain”.
Bureau Veritas Certification helped develop the ISO 22000 standard and was the first international certification body to obtain ISO 22000 accreditation. It operates in 100 countries.
ISO standards and certificates
Recently, Roger Frost, the manager of communication services in the marketing and communication department of the ISO Central Secretariat in Geneva, outlined challenges in obtaining ISO 22000 certification.
“The difficulty of certification depends on many factors including the size and complexity of the company and its products and services, whether the certification covers one or multiple sites and the level of training and maturity of staff,” he said.
“Simply put, if the organisation already has a systematic approach to ensuring food [or ingredients] safety in place, then it will have less difficulty in bringing this into line with the requirements of standard than a company which is just starting to take a systematic approach.”
BI goes organic
Meanwhile Californian supplier BI Nutraceuticals has gained an organic certification from Quality Assurance International (QAI) for its Islandia, New York facility.
It can now manufacture certified, “organic vitamin premixes, custom blends and granulated or roller compacted ingredients to the dietary supplement, food and pharmaceutical industries out of this facility.”
BI has a similar QAI certification for its Californian plant in 2004.
"Certifying our Islandia facility allows us to produce an even higher volume of quality organic ingredients for our customer base," stated George Pontiakos, president and chief executive officer of BI Nutraceuticals. "Today BI has more than 100 certified organic offerings for use in a variety of applications including dietary supplements, foods, and beverages."
QAI operates in the US, Canada, Japan and the European Union.