This is a story for QM managers and other rice exporters: Recently we encountered a very strange transport damage which I want to share as an “educational experience”. 4 containers of 20 big bags each – all filled from a totally consistent lot of rice – were delivered to a client in Europe.
The lot was sampled by the surveyors as per EU aflatoxin regulation (very high number of samples taken from each and every big bag. Pre-shipment analysis (Physical cooking samples and chemical analysis by a leading European Lab) showed all in the green.
When the containers had been transported from Asia around Africa to Europe (7 week between container closing and opening at destination) the rice in ONE container smelled chemical, like paint thinner. The container load had to be destroyed.
This was a first for me during the 25 years I am working with containerized international bulk food transport that a perfectly good food stuff was damaged through a hidden container property. It turned out that on the last journey of this container had been a load of new machinery and the lingering fumes (condensed to the walls, seeped into the wooden floor?) were concentrated and potent enough to destroy the next food load.
As a result of this we have been updating our container clearance procedure.
It is standard practice that the inspecting surveyor that overseas the loading of containers walks into, has the doors closed and then inspects if light is shining in anywhere which would indicate a broken container hull of broken door seals. This may happy any time and is mostly done after the container has been standing with wide open doors already for some time. We now request that the surveyor has his “nose in good working condition (no COVID of stuffed nose) close to the opening once a container is opened for the first time after it has been transported to the loading site, that he steps in and does a dedicated smell test in the container before the same is aeriated.In a discussion with Dr. Nader of Eurofins, Hamburg, Germany I learned that such problem also occur from time to time with containers that had for example newly produced shoes as the last load. So, dear Surveyors: Noses up!
The 2 articles linked below give some additional insight. Thank you Dr. Nader for providing the same.Bruno Fischer
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177363
https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/health-risks-through-fumigated-containers-experts-discuss-research-results-and-values-measured-by-control-authorities.pdf
Nosey surveyors wanted!
