Treasure The Taste!

TODOROFF FOODS IS THE BEST IN MICHIGAN !

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View or download a printable version of Press Release 2007–02–20   (68KB)



Press Contact:

Kurt R. Todoroff
Todoroff Foods Incorporated
517–787–4962
kurt.todoroff@todoroffs.com


 Treasure The Taste!




TODOROFF FOODS


Four Generations

Of Quality Food



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Todoroff Foods Incorporated earns the best Food Safety Assessment
ever written by the United States Department Of Agriculture for a
food processing company in the state of Michigan.

JACKSON, Michigan — February 20, 2007 — Todoroff Foods Incorporated today announced that it has earned the honor of receiving the best Food Safety Assessment ever written by the United States Department of Agriculture for a food processing company in the state of Michigan.

Thomas Gallagher, United States Department of Agriculture Frontline Supervisor for all food plants inspected in western Michigan, stated:

I did review the assessment and want to thank you for all your hard work as the findings or lack there of made Todoroff’s the best SFA ever written in Michigan. I commend you for your commitment to food safety. I do not visit your facility as much as I would like but that is because I know it is the safest plant in my circuit and I have plants that need much more attention then yours. Thanks again for your hard work.

This singular distinction reflects credit on our commitment to food safety and our commitment to our customers. We are proud of our achievement and of this unique status.

We look forward to continuing our four–generation and 110–year heritage of producing quality food and happy customers.


Download Press Release:

 

Press Contact:

Kurt R. Todoroff
Todoroff Foods Incorporated
517–787–4962
kurt.todoroff@todoroffs.com

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THE FOOD SAFETY ASSESSMENT

Todoroff Foods Incorporated receives a grant of inspection from the United States Department Of Agriculture (USDA) to conduct food processing and manufacturing operations. Todoroff Foods manufactures, markets, and sells Todoroff's® Original Chili and Todoroff's® Original Chili Con Carne With Beans throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. We sell both products nationwide through our Internet store (www.todoroff–foods.com). Our company is small, but I have large aspirations.

During the late 1990s the United States Congress mandated that the USDA require that all federally inspected establishments must develop, implement, and use a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point program in their food processing operations. This required every establishment to designate an HACCP official who had received certification from an accredited HACCP school. I attended HACCP school at the Michigan State University Agriculture center in Lansing Michigan with other small plant owners/operators in August 1999.

Subsequently, I wrote my HACCP plan for Todoroff Foods in September 1999 and then submitted it to the USDA plant Inspector In Charge and to the USDA western Michigan Circuit Supervisor who was in charge of all USDA inspected establishments in western Michigan. The plants under the Circuit Supervisor's purview of authority ranged from very small, like Todoroff Foods, to very large, like the multi–billion dollar Conagra plant in Quincy Michigan. Large plants like Conagra have considerable financial resources to hire and pay highly experienced people to develop, implement, and manage their HACCP plans. Circuit Supervisor Doctor Medhat Idris stated that my fifty–four page HACCP plan was the best one that he had ever reviewed and approved. He even shared my HACCP plan with his colleague, the Circuit Supervisor for eastern Michigan, who made the same comment.

During the last nine years, the USDA has continuously changed the requirements for the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point methodology as the government learns more about the integration of HACCP into our food manufacturing process. Compliance has been difficult because the USDA's evolutionary approach to defining HACCP requirements has represented a moving target for our industry. Often the USDA has promulgated new HACCP rules and law without informing our industry, and then enforced the new laws and rules post facto.

During the past four years, the USDA has deployed Enforcement, Investigations, and Analysis Officers (EIAOs) across the United States to evaluate our industry's compliance with Federally mandated HACCP requirements as well as to evaluate the safety of each and every federally inspected plant. This is called a Food Safety Assessment (FSA). The USDA conducted an FSA of Todoroff Foods during January and February of 2007. This was an arduous process where the EIAO inspected the Todoroff Foods plant in great detail, observed our production operation in action, asked billions of questions while we were immersed in production, inspected and evaluated my HACCP plan word for word, and carefully inspected and evaluated all of my HACCP production documents for the previous twelve months to insure that our product was safe and that we had not falsified any document or record in an attempt to hide or cover up a manufacturing problem that could jeopardize public food safety.

At the conclusion of the Food Safety Assessment, the EIAO conducted an exit briefing with me. He read his written report to me. He stated that I "run a tight ship and a first rate operation". He did not issue any non-compliance reports. He stated that only ten percent of all companies complete the FSA without a non-compliance report or additional action. He summarized his assessment of Todoroff Foods by saying that I have a "fabulous" operation and that company size is not relevant to the outcome of an FSA.  ie. Both large and small companies do well during the FSA and both large and small companies do poorly during the FSA. The EIAO forwarded his written report to the USDA Madison district office, which approved it before it became official and public.

During the past four years, the USDA Circuit Supervisors and the various Inspectors In Charge have frequently reminded me that the Enforcement, Investigations, and Analysis Officer would be visiting my plant soon to conduct his assessment. In November of 2006, Frontline Supervisor (the new USDA title that replaces the previous title Circuit Supervisor) Thomas Gallagher informed me that the EIA Officer would contact me in December to commence his Food Safety Assessment. I replied to him that the USDA had been saying this to me for four years. He explained to me that the USDA evaluates and then ranks all of its inspected plants in each Circuit by risk. (As I alluded to previously, there are two Circuits in Michigan, eastern and western.) The Todoroff Foods plant was at the bottom of the risk analysis list, which is why it took so long for the EIA Officer to finally conduct his Food Safety Assessment at Todoroff Foods.

After the United States Department of Agriculture EIAO concluded his Food Safety Assessment of Todoroff Foods, Frontline Supervisor Thomas Gallagher sent the following email to me.

Begin forwarded message:

From:   Thomas Gallagher <Thomas.Gallagher@fsis.usda.gov>
Subject:   FSA conducted by Canfield.
Date:   February 20, 2007 12:34:54 PM GMT-05:00
To:   Kurt Richard Todoroff <Kurt.todoroff@todoroffs.com>

Hi Kurt , sorry I was not able to make it over during Canfields assessment. I was out of state for much of it and then had food safety issues that needed to be addressed at other plants. I did review the assessment and want to thank you for all your hard work as the findings or lack there of made Todoroff’s the best SFA ever written in Michigan. I commend you for your commitment to food safety. I do not visit your facility as much as I would like but that is because I know it is the safest plant in my circuit and I have plants that need much more attention then yours. Thanks again for your hard work.

Tom Gallagher
Frontline Supervisor
Lansing, Mi 45-33
Office Phone 517-355-8452 ex 197
Cell # 1-517-974-7230
MDO Voice mail 1-800-826-2256 ex 3003
e-mail:thomas.gallagher@fsis.usda.gov
Fax: 517-337-0524


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