“All in One” Portal Will Help QA Managers Manage Non-GMO, Organic, and Kosher Certifications

A new partnership between several significant third-party certifiers aims to help QA managers keep track of needs related to third-party food certifications, including non-GMO, organic, and kosher. The Food Quality Alliance, launching in Q2 and formed between California Certified Organic Farmers, regulatory strategic consulting firm The Acheson Group LLC, kosher certifier Orthodox Union, and non-GMO specialist Global ID, was announced at Natural Products Expo West and aims to provide “a single source of over 40 essential testing, training, and certification services.”

While some details are still in development, Ron Stakland, vice president, business development, Global ID Group, said the alliance could eventually include a centralized software platform that enables QA managers to manage multiple certifications from one online dashboard. Third-party certifiers will still handle the actual certification process, but the alliance should help reduce “inefficiencies,” especially given the fact that the documentation requirements of certain certification schemes may already overlap.

“Having to have multiple systems to manage these things strikes us as an inefficiency that, if we could unify those things in a single portal for people, will help QA managers,” Stakland said. “Our intention is to facilitate that process and give people a sort of champion within our group that interacts with alliance members to make sure that all the pieces are getting pulled together that the client needs.”

Another area where coordination may benefit QA managers is if the alliance were to also enable cross-training for inspections for a multitude of certifications. “One thing that QA managers don’t like is having to have multiple inspections for multiple certifications,” which costs business both time and money, Stakland says. “If we can start having two, three, four, or more of these inspections done by a single inspector on a single visit, that’s going to really relieve some headaches for these QA managers.”

Nutritional Outlook named the Global ID Group one of the magazine’s Best of 2014 companies in light of the company’s founding role in non-GMO services and the Non-GMO Project. Read more here.

Jennifer Grebow
Editor-in-Chief
Nutritional Outlook magazine
jennifer.grebow@ubm.com

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