Tata Steel Trostre achieves elite food packaging standard qualification

Following a recent unannounced audit, Tata Steel’s packaging plant, located in Trostre, Wales, has achieved the highest possible AA+ food packaging standard rating.

The prestigious BRCGS rating means that the site is now among an elite group of top-tier suppliers to the food industry.

Howard Saxty, food packaging standards quality specialist at Tata Steel Trostre, said, “While the packaging operation at Trostre is at the end of the steelmaking process, it is the beginning of the line for the high-profile end customers who make the canned products we all recognize on supermarket shelves and in our cupboards at home. We must prove to auditors that the tinplate we process is safe enough to manufacture the cans that contain safety-critical ingredients, including baby formula, so compliance with the strictest food safety standards for packaging is non-negotiable. Steel packaging material is not cleaned after it leaves our facility, so it simply has to be food safe before it goes out the door.”

Having achieved AA rating for the past several years, the site agreed to undergo unannounced audits, choosing to be challenged at a higher level.

“This demonstrates the confidence we have in our daily food safety culture and procedures,” said Gemma Finn-Lewis, product and process development manager for Tata Steel at Trostre.

After an impressive two-day audit, Trostre has achieved an AA+ rating as part of our annual external accreditation for food safe packaging material.

“This is the most rigorous and thorough audit we can do. Since the auditors could show up at any time over a four-month period, with only twenty minutes’ notice, we worked with all of our teams to make sure we were ‘in shape’ and ready at all times.”

Factory manager Joe Gallacher said, “Certification is vitally important as it provides the company with a license to operate in the food packaging industry, plain and simple: no certificate, no food packaging customers. Achieving the AA+ rating elevates us to the highest level. Not only does it give our customers the confidence that we will protect them and their customers, but it also gives us a competitive advantage, making us a supplier of choice.