The implications of the new food safety and traceability regulations, which came into force in January 2005, are being severely tested as the latest Sudan1 food scare unfolds.
Sudan1 is an imported red dye more commonly found in floor and shoe polishes.
It has been banned from food products in the EU since 2003 because of its potential risk to health.
It now turns out chilli powder from India, contaminated with the dye, has inadvertently found its way into batches of Worcester sauce manufactured and distributed by Premier Foods.
The sauce is used as an ingredient in a wide range of other food products and therefore more than 400 products, including many on sale at Britain's biggest supermarkets, have been withdrawn from sale since Friday 18 February 2005.
The UK Food Standards Agency has announced that, as more investigations are conducted into how the dye was distributed through the food chain, many more products could have to be withdrawn.
The Worcester sauce has been used by hundreds of other companies and it is not difficult to imagine how complex the investigation is.
Clearly rapid access to vital traceability data is essential to ensure the matter is resolved as quickly as possible to restore consumer confidence.
Stevens, a supplier of recipe formulation and traceability systems, says it understands how difficult it can be to trace ingredients within the food chain.
For many food manufacturers, the variety and diversity of their products dictate that recipes are made up by manually adding the ingredients.
Therefore keeping track of the individual amounts of each ingredient used, while also ensuring all the correct ingredients are added, can be a daunting task.
Traditionally companies have used paper-based systems to record recipe and batch information.
These are not only cumbersome but also prone to human error.
Retrieving relevant data on demand is a major task which can take days to achieve.
To overcome this Stevens has developed comprehensive weighing and traceability systems which can track ingredients throughout the manufacturing process from goods-in to goods-out.
Its recipe formulation modules have been specifically developed to provide a complete recipe management, stock control and traceability system, virtually eliminating onerous paper based systems, it says.
Stevens's sales manager Stuart Hunt is clear about the merits of the system: "While companies using outdated paper work systems will be struggling to provide the data, those operating our electronic systems would be able to provide relevant data in a matter of seconds.
"Our units are far more than just weighing scales and offer the ultimate in flexibility, ease-of-use and reliability for a wide range of recipe formulation applications.
"They can be used as standalone self-contained modules or networked as part of a fully integrated system allowing optimum use of the weight data.
"The fully sealed and waterproof operator console can withstand regular wash-down routines making the system ideally suited to the working environments found in modern food manufacturing establishments".
The system generates a range of powerful reports which can be customised to meet specific requirements.
These give a detailed and instant overview of the operation at any given time and can include data relating to individual ingredient usage, recipe consistency, stock control and production yield.
Note: the Worcester sauce is produced by Crosse and Blackwell and is not in any way linked to Lea and Perrins's Worcestershire sauce.
