To date, half of Fort Dearborn’s plants have been certified under the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials. The standards are set forth via the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
The Fort Dearborn facilities produce cut-and-stack, pressure-sensitive, roll-fed, and shrink-sleeve labels for both food and non-food items. Customers include Kraft Foods, Del Monte, Unilever, ConAgra Foods and more.
Showing safety
Fort Dearborn CEO Bill Johnstone said that BRC certification demonstrates the company’s commitment to providing food industry clients with high-quality, safe packaging products.
“Fort Dearborn decided to enhance each facility’s specific HACCP program to be based on food safety guidelines so that the program would meet the needs of our customers’ Safe Quality Food (SQF) and BRC certification requirements from the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA),” he said.
“Achieving BRC certification confirms our ongoing customer commitment to producing safe, high quality labels for food and non-food use,” he added.
Demonstrating quality
Developed by packaging and product safety experts, the BRC Standard is HACCP based and incorporates food safety management systems and internationally accepted manufacturing practices.
The Fort Dearborn locations that have been certified are situated in Bowling Green, Kentucky; Brunswick, Georgia; Fort Worth, Texas; Leamington, Ontario; Niles, Illinois, and Sparks, Nevada.
The facilities on target to attain BRC certification in 2014 are in Elk Grove, Illinois; Fountain Inn, South Carolina; Laval, Quebec; Louisville, Kentucy; Provo, Utah; and St. Louis, Missouri.