Monthly Archives: October 2021

Food Safety in Seafood: Why You Can Feel Safe Enjoying Seafood from Seattle Fish Company

At Seattle Fish, our team works diligently every day to ensure that your customers and your family can enjoy our seafood safely. Safety is one of our cornerstones. It’s written on the walls throughout our facility; a visual reminder of how vital our adherence to daily safety practices are. Our work around safety – both food safety (what we do to keep our products safe) and environmental safety (what we do to keep our people and customers safe) – represents our commitment to our customers, partners and community.

Seattle Fish Co.’s food safety program is among the top in the nation, and also what separates Seattle Fish Company from the rest of the pack. In fact, SFC is the only seafood company in Colorado to have earned certification as a Level 3 SQF (Safe Quality Food) facility, a rigorous and credible food safety and quality program that is recognized by retailers, brand owners, and food service providers world-wide.

This level of safety doesn’t happen by accident, we have made a conscious decision to invest in raising the bar on safety, including a team of three individuals dedicated solely to making sure we follow (and exceed) industry food safety standards and personal safety practices.

This team is led by Ken Boyer, Seattle Fish Company’s Food Safety Quality Assurance Manager & SQF Practitioner, who has been with the company since 1993. Ken has also taught Seafood HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) certification for over 10 years and is one of only two instructors inside the state of Colorado licensed to do so.

Seattle Fish Co. also has a safety committee made up of individuals from various departments that meet once a week to stringently and intentionally review our performance, keep up with new and changing information, and drive continual improvement. They then share that information internally with employees and make themselves available to answer any questions.

“We work to ensure that Seattle Fish Company is providing the highest-quality and safest product possible to our customers,” said Boyer regarding his team and their important role at Seattle Fish. “We accomplish this by diligently following a seafood HAACP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) plan regulated by the FDA. In addition to following our HAACP plan, we’ve self-created many SOP’s, policies, and procedures on what our employees need to do and follow every day to ensure we are sending out only the best product.”

“My safety team is responsible for conducting daily safety audit checklists that consist of about 15-20 line items, including checking for proper rotation, and ensuring that all products are labeled and binned correctly in our warehouse. Perhaps our most important work is training and educating our staff on food safety and personal safety standards. This makes all the difference on ensuring that we’re providing a safe product to customers and consumers.”

Your brand the name on your building, the food you prepare, the atmosphere you create – is your reputation and your promise to your customersOur investment and leadership in food and environmental safety represents an investment that we consciously make in your brand. We are proud of the effort we undertake to ensure that the healthy seafood and specialty products you receive from Seattle Fish are wholesome enough for us to feed to our families, and wholesome enough to serve to your customersThat investment reflects in our reputation and our brand promise to you. Leadership in food safety – we wouldn’t dream of doing this any other way.  

Sources:
https://www.sqfi.com/why-get-certified/about-sqf-program/
https://www.fda.gov/food/hazard-analysis-critical-control-point-haccp/haccp-principles-application-guidelines