KUALA LUMPUR: Extra Excellence Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, which manufactures and packs powdered beverages, food capsules and tea products, places food safety as its top priority.
“Food safety is important as it ensures that our products are safe for public consumption and provides quality assurance for peace of mind to our customers,” its general manager Khoo Suat Lai said.
The company is this year’s recipient of the Gold Award in AVA’s Food Safety Excellence Awards for achieving Grade ‘A’ for 15 consecutive years. It won the Silver Award in 2013 and the Bronze Award in 2008. AVA refers to the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore.
Khoo said the company has created a culture where all employees — currently totalling 90 staff — assume responsibility for achieving high quality and safe products and adhering to compliance requirements.
“We have in place stringent quality controls, careful selection of quality raw materials, formalised processes, good documentation practices, and a dedication to ensure traceability from raw materials to finished products,” she said in a statement.
Khoo said every raw material is tested for microbial and heavy metal content to ensure they are within specifications. All materials that do not meet the strict requirements are rejected and disposed of.
“All production staff go through a personal hygiene check at the start of the day. They wear hair nets, masks, and gowns while they work. All food handlers’ uniforms are washed at our in-house laundry to ensure that they are cleaned properly,” she added.
To audit its food safety procedures, the company has adopted the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)-based food safety management system. This ensures that all potential food-safety hazards in the production process are identified and controls are in place to minimize and eliminate them.
The company has also obtained the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Certification under the Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) audited by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA).
The manufacturing plant is also subjected to planned and unannounced inspections by local and overseas food regulatory authorities. In-house internal audit is conducted annually by the QA/QC department.
Various external audits by Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA), Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS), and SGS vary from yearly to every three years. The company has also been subjected to overseas authority audits by the US FDA and South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
Khoo said the company, which has been in business for 18 years, leveraged on technology to raise the standards of food safety.
“We have invested heavily to purchase top-of-the-range equipment, such as the encapsulation machine from Bosch Germany and sachet-filling machines from Sanko Japan. We were the first company in Singapore to import the Ishida X-ray machine for the screening of foreign matter in our finished products.
“We have strict controls on our production environment, including humidity and temperature controls and cleaning validation, to prevent contamination of raw materials, production processes and packaging,” she said.
Khoo said ultraviolet disinfection systems disinfect and kill bacteria in the air daily, while production flows are semi-automated to minimise human contact for product safety and hygiene.
Summing up the company’s safety culture, she said: “We work as a family where our employees are showered with care, given the opportunity to voice their ideas on ways to improve any processes, and given adequate training and re-training on food safety. Everyone in the company, especially the production staff, live and breathe food safety as their top priority.”
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CAPTION: From left to right. Khoo Suat Lai, General Manager, Extra Excellence Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd with Lau Phooi Hing, General Manager, Extra Excel (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd