How Britvic protects its products, consumers and brand reputation against food fraud

Summary

It's products are available in over 100 countries, and the global consumption of its beverages reaches over 2.3 billion litres annually. 

With a history dating back nearly a century, Britvic is committed to safeguarding its successes and legacy.

Among the ways they achieve this is by focusing on effective risk management to maintain secure and safe practices, especially within their supply chains.

Our daily lives revolve around food and drink.

So, it’s crucial that the products we consume not only taste delicious but are safe for us.

We trust food and drink manufacturers to oversee every aspect of the production process to deliver the quality and safety we demand.

Even in a cost-of-living crisis with surging prices and stretched purse strings, we are not willing to compromise on this.

Companies wanting to gain and keep customers’ trust must be committed to transparency and accountability in today’s market.

Britvic, a leading producer of soft drinks enjoyed by millions worldwide, stands out in this regard.

The challenge

Besides its popular beverages, Britvic is widely recognized for its exceptional quality and safety standards.

They prioritize innovation in these areas and use cutting-edge technology to stay ahead of the competition.

Yet, the rise of food fraud is a major worry for food and beverage producers, including Britvic.

As international supply chains grow, tracking food origins becomes increasingly difficult, heightening the risk of fraudulent activities.

According to the FDA, food fraud affects about 1% of the global food industry and costs approximately $10-$15 billion annually.

Authenticity matters

As an operationally excellent producer, Britvic has robust systems to detect and prevent fraudulent practices.

David comments: “Authenticity is one of the areas in which we work in line with food fraud or the prevention of food fraud. With high-value, low-yield materials, there is potential risk. An example would be where one material can be split with another. This would lead to us not receiving the material we actually paid for or purchased. We’ve recently had a case with raspberries, a very low-yield, high-value, high-cost material.

Our authenticity program identified that the material had been adulterated before we received it. 

“To prevent such incidents, we look at the region and country where the raw materials are grown and sourced.

We also assess supply chain risks, from growers and packers to processors and manufacturers. We identify what falls into a high-risk category and spot-check for external analysis to verify authenticity.

“Take juice as an example. European legislation requires that it be 100% of the juice without any other materials in there, such as peel, rind or shell. This poses a challenge and a risk, especially when purchasing materials from different continents with varying legislation. Therefore, this forms part of the risk assessment itself.

“The cause of such scenarios may stem from poor crop yields or high costs associated with energy, cost-of-living, manufacturing and the supply chain. If adulterated material is not identified in our monitoring and testing program and makes its way into the final product, the worst-case scenario is a product recall.”

The solution

The food and beverage industry has faced several challenges over recent years, resulting in significant disruptions to global supply chains. These include post-Brexit uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic, import and export difficulties and raw material shortages.

As a result, companies are under immense pressure to modify their operational methods to better prepare for potential issues and quality risks. In the Ideagen 2023 Food Safety Audit Report, 29% of food and drink producers cited supply chain issues as their top concern.

With Britvic’s extensive product range, its supply chains are complex. To overcome this, they have successfully implemented end-to-end authenticity management and mitigation procedures to ensure product credibility and safety. David explains: “Britvic has a risk-based approach to authenticity.

We look at the material type and the area where it is grown and manufactured as part of our annual scheduled testing program. Additionally, our customers may request authenticity reports for any materials we use. 

“We are also members of the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) authenticity scheme. This non-competitive program enables the BSDA to test our products on our behalf and those of other FMCG companies. The reports are shared annually, and any areas of concern, risk or non-compliance are identified, as well as the manufacturers of such materials.

“Another thing we find really useful is the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) report within the Ideagen platform. By linking our suppliers and materials to the RASFF report, we automatically receive early warnings of any potential issues with the raw materials we procure.”

Driving continuous improvement

Britvic has addressed its daily operational challenges using software to gain complete supply chain visibility and traceability, which gives them real-time quality, safety and compliance data.

By utilizing these insights, Britvic can proactively identify and resolve risks and maintain a culture of continuous improvement.

David says: “We use the Ideagen platform to manage non-conformances and schedule and conduct audits. The system allows us to extract valuable data and helps us establish best practices and continuous
improvement within our manufacturing locations

“For instance, we utilize data extracted from the Ideagen platform every month to help our procurement team manage supplier performance. The software assists in reviewing categories such as co-manufacturer ingredients, fruit and packaging to identify non-conformances.

Through this process, we communicate back to the supplier the necessary requirements for root cause analysis and corrective action. Then, those corrective actions and root cause analysis come back through procurement to the quality function, where they are signed off as completed tasks."