Microsafe® Food Safety

Your Peace Of Mind For Food Safety

At Crown Food Group, we pride ourselves on making food safety a top priority.

Our commitment to our customers is underpinned by the Microsafe® Food Safety Programme which adheres to the most stringent standards of global product safety, quality, hygiene and legal compliance.

Microsafe® is the protocol that we abide by to ensure that our ingredients, seasonings, batchpacks, marinades and sauces proactively respond to the growing international demand for food safety standards.

Setting the benchmark for quality and compliance, in addition to our ISO/IEC 22000, HACCP, BRC and FSSC 22000 accredited certifications, Microsafe® demands additional food safety initiatives, including:

Selection & Sorting

  • Procurement of pre-selected and approved materials from reputable suppliers who have passed the “SQA” or supplier quality audit for food safety standards.
  • Quality control of incoming shipments to ensure the products conform to specifications, pre-shipment samples and suppliers certificates of analysis (COA).
  • Automated and manual spice cleaning operations to remove any foreign matter.
  • Lot traceability for future reference purposes.
  • Assessment for pesticide residue & Adulterant management controls for Spices & Herbs

Manufacturing Protocols

  • Metal detection and X-Ray scanning to detect possible ferrous and non-ferrous contaminants.
  • Quality Assurance of finished products with complete organoleptic and chemical analysis tests, and the provision of certificates of analysis to customers.
  • Allergen Testing.

Analytical Chemisty

Microbiological analysis of pre and post sterilisation samples to ensure conformance with legal and customer requirements. We are capable of performing a range of tests including, but not limited to:

  • High Pressure Liquid chromatography for the detection of Aflatoxins, Sudan Red and Capsaicin content of chillies.
  • Protein tests (Sprint analyser)
  • Capsaicin (HPLC)
  • Aflatoxins
  • Texture & Viscosity
  • Volatile Oil Content
  • Moisture content
  • Chemical component tests for Salt, Sodium Sulphite, Preservatives, pH, Nitrites, Sugar content
  • Colourimetric analysis for the assessment of colour conformance

Listeria Monocytogenes Control

  • In 2017, Crown developed a Listeria Monitoring Programme, that has been refined over time.
  • The programme ensures that strategic points in its manufacturing operations are routinely sampled and tested.
  • Testing is carried out by laboratories accredited to perform Listeria Monocytogenes testing.
  • In the event of positive results, Crown has an established protocol to deal with rapid deep clean and sanitation, using specialist cleaning teams proficient in hazard management deep cleaning.
  • Crown routinely tests final product as well to validate that its Listeria controls are working effectively.
  • Accountability in the management and control of this function is maintained by ensuring thatListeria control is a standing agenda item reported in quarterly Risk Committee meetings to its board of directors.

Steam Sterilisation

The Microsafe® Steam Sterilisation system is a high temperature protocol, during which spices are subjected to saturated steam at 110° C for a short, predetermined time. Steam sterilisation is a well-accepted, “green alternative” to Gamma Irradiation sterilisation and does not require any such labelling of product.

It is a natural, safe and effective manner in which to ensure the appropriate kill rate of micro-organisms; and is a preferred method to irradiation.

We steam sterilise the herbs and spices to ensure compliance with government regulations for microbial loads.

Occupational Health & Safety and Covid-19 Control

  • Crown firmly believes in placing the lives of its employees, its most valuable resource, above all else.
  • Crown has a multi-disciplinary team leading the control and management of COVID-19 in the workplace including medical, legal, public and occupational health, as well as safety expertise.
  • Crown has a comprehensive risk register and related control mitigation plans to deal with the disease and to ensure worker health and safety is protected. This is also done to ensure that our customers also benefit from these stringent measures of control.
  • All of our controls are consistent and in full compliance to DoL legislation and benchmarked against DoH guidelines. Crown is also in constant contact with these government departments to ensure our risk plans continue to meet both legal obligations and current best practices.
  • Crown makes use of preferred laboratories to test staff when required, and has cleaning teams that specialise in rapid cleaning and sanitation of the work environment, on standby, for rapid deployment when needed.
  • Complete symptoms checking of all employees on arrival at office daily.

Microbiological Test

  • Total plate count
  • Yeast
  • Mould
  • Coliforms
  • Escherichia coli
  • Salmonella
  • Staphylococcus aureus
  • Clostridium perfringens
  • Bacillus cereus
  • Lactobacillus
  • Listeria monocytogenes