Cake walk
Aditi Gangavkar finds out how Monginis Foods achieved
the HACCP certification
‘Go ahead, celebrate.’ These words
remind us of the times spent
relishing the most exotic cakes and
pastries; of the smooth, creamy, sweet flavour
exciting our taste buds. These words remind
us of 'Monginis'. And today, the mood is just
the same at this favoured cake company, as it
has recently bagged the HACCP quality
certification. This process was based on
the audit carried out by SGS (Societe
Generale de Surveillance) according to the
guidelines laid down by Codex Alimentarius
Commission, Geneva.
Impressive enough. But why is that
acquiring an HACCP certification should be
such a difficult task for the Cakes and Pastry
sector? "HACCP Certification is a challenging
task to achieve for Cake and Pastry sector as
compared to other food sectors and there are
several reasons for it," pat comes the reply
from Keshav Anchan, Factory Manager,
Monginis. "Cakes and pastries are extremely
perishable in nature. The shelf life of fresh
cream products is 48 hours and that of a
butter cream product is 96 hours from the
time of manufacture. Thus, inventory cannot
be built in advance," he says. "Then again,
there are large varieties of such products in
terms of design, shape, flavour and weight.
More than 200 varieties of cakes are made to
order everyday to deliver fresh to the
customer. Thus, automation is highly
restricted," Mr Anchan adds. The amount of
manpower involved in processing, sorting and
distribution of cakes and pastries is equally
enormous, with a majority of the workers
coming from low-income strata and staying in
slums and unclean environment. This makes
the task of inculcating good hygiene habits
and changing these workers' mindsets, a major
challenge. The scope of this test extends
further, as most of the raw materials,
packaging and decorative items are procured
locally. Thus creating awareness, providing
knowledge, training and technical supervision
to vendors to get desired quality of products,
is quite tough. "While other food processing
factories have an advantage of at least two
of the above factors, a Cake and Pastry
factory has to face all the above challenges,"
confirms Mr Anchan
The drive
Monginis, a national, highly reputed and
trusted brand for more than 25 years, marks
its presence in nine cities in India and plans
to diversify into catering, fast foods and
chocolates. A strong control system for safe
food production for its plants at all locations
was the need of the hour to grow rapidly and
yet maintain the highest quality standards to
win customer trust and confidence. "Hence
we felt that amongst the other initiatives like
Six Sigma, ERP and ISO 9000 in our plants,
HACCP Certification was definitely a goal
worth achieving," Mr Anchan says.
The journey
The company took its first steps towards
HACCP on October 29, 2002 in the form of a
two-day HACCP training workshop, which
was held at its corporate office premises in
Mumbai. Twenty-five executives from various
departments attended the workshop that
focused on creating awareness amongst the
staff regarding safe food products, exposing
them to the rigorous and stringent control
and monitoring systems of HACCP to ensure
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