When it comes to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), how can food and beverage manufacturers get more than the minimum legal compliance? By working with trusted specialist suppliers.
If you’re a food and beverage manufacturer, failing to maintain mandated hygiene standards puts both public health and your own future at risk. Ensuring all workers wear the correct PPE for food and drink production is vital, but manufacturers cannot achieve this alone. They need trusted suppliers of PPE that they can collaborate with.
This collaboration can take many forms, with one of the most common being value-added services such as managed inventory solutions. These offer many benefits for organisations, both in terms of MRO and supporting business performance more broadly. Senior indirect procurement professionals surveyed for a report by RS and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), for example, listed better visibility of stock and spend (70%), less time spent raising individual orders (69%) and higher availability (49%) as three of the main advantages.
But how can food and beverage manufacturers feel confident that their PPE suppliers are up to the job? Here Craig Stasik, Industry Sector Manager at RS, shares his insights. Stasik has a wealth of sector experience to draw upon having spent years at food and beverage PPE specialist Needlers, now part of the RS Group, before taking up his current role.
Protect your people, protect your product
“The difference between PPE within the food and drink world compared to other sectors is that it isn’t all about the protecting the person from risk,” explains Stasik. “It is also about protecting the product from the person making it.”
Creating a food safe product is critical
Craig Stasik, Industry Sector Manager, RS
“If you’re producing consumable goods, the end customer clearly doesn’t want someone’s hair or part of a blue vinyl glove stuck in the package. Creating a food safe product is critical and you need to know that you have a PPE supplier who can cater for that. “Food and beverage customers are looking for PPE that meets certain standards and specifications to ensure the safe production of food,” he continues. “There are cheap gloves out there on the market, for instance, but they may have latex in them, which is a no-no when handling food.” If you have concerns, the Health and Safety Executive advise asking your PPE supplier the following four questions:
- Is it suitable for the conditions of the job?
- Does it offer the right level of protection?
- What sort of training or maintenance is required?
- How do I know when it needs replacing?
The risks of prosecution
The consequences of failing to meet required standards are enormous. Statistics from the Food Standards Agency, for example, reveal that local authorities reported 2,800 formal enforcement actions for food hygiene and 322 for food standards in the six months to October 2024. Even if your business is not forced to close, prosecution by the FSA or the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for breaching regulations can be costly – for your finances and your reputation. That is without considering the costs involved if a production line or entire plant has to close, even if only temporarily, as well as the expense of contracts suspended or terminated.
Value-added support
Legal compliance is, however, a minimum requirement, not the sole requirement.
PPE needs to be good enough quality to enable the wearer to perform the task in hand without compromise
Craig Stasik, Industry Sector Manager, RS
“The manufacturer’s needs go beyond what’s laid out in the legislation,” says Stasik. “PPE needs to be good enough quality to enable the wearer to perform the task in hand without compromise too. This means products that are fit for purpose rather than products designed just to offer low prices.
“Take wellington boots. Although polyurethane leather (PU) boots cost around four times as much, they are more comfortable for the wearer, have the highest level of anti-slip sole and offer and offer a cost-in-use benefit because they last longer.”
Food and beverage manufacturers also need continuity of supply. “In terms of what customers are looking for, it’s reliability,” he adds. “Food and beverage production businesses want to ensure they have seamless control because in the manufacturing world, if the supplier runs out of an essential product, operations grind to a halt.
“They need PPE suppliers who have that foresight and plan for levels of demand.”
Does working with an industry specialist help? Most definitely, believes Stasik. “We know what’s important,” he states. “Certain items of PPE, for example, are what we call showstoppers. Without these, production cannot continue – therefore if we run out, it could bring a customer’s operations to a stop.
“We mitigate this risk by overstocking on those lines, such as gloves and mob caps, that are critical for food production.”
Stronger together
Suppliers with sector expertise can support food and beverage manufacturers in tackling other business challenges such as rising costs. “We understand how a food factory works, meaning we can walk into a manufacturing facility and see things that others don’t,” says Stasik.
“Being industry specialists, we can see where we can add value in terms of providing a cost-in-use solution without compromising on quality.”
This is about moving beyond a transactional approach to a more holistic relationship between supplier and customer: “Anything we can do to make it easier for customers or remove some of the pain will allow them to better address the challenges they face.
“Value-added solutions are an area where we can help. By reducing processing costs, they offer another route for them to keep the products they want despite inflation.”
The acquisition of Needlers by RS means both specialist expertise and a broad range of solutions are now available for food and beverage manufacturers in one place – and Stasik is clear about how customers of both brands will benefit from them joining forces.
“There’s a more complete solution to the customer,” he says, “with real advantages as a one-stop shop supplying a comprehensive and competitive PPE proposal.
“Together we’re much stronger than apart.”
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