Tesco: A Tale of Tainted Sausages and Circumspect Beans
While I'm not sure why any health conscience -- or gastronomically inclined -- individual would want to eat canned sausage and beans, Tesco has recently recalled just these items. I originally saw the story on Procurement Leaders, although the BBC has a few more details, getting to the bottom of the stinky cans. According to the BBC, "the supermarket giant said that pieces of plastic from the production line in Italy have been found in a small number of the cans." Putting on my retail sourcing hat, my key take away from this story is that as retailers continue to increase their private label sourcing initiatives -- as consumers shun traditional brands, thanks to inflationary pricing pressures -- eternal supply risk vigilance will be the cost of spend liberty. Indeed, many retailers don't have the quality and risk monitoring / management processes for private label products that branded product suppliers such as P&G and Nestle can claim.
- Jason Busch
- Jason Busch
No question. I ran a PLM/Sourcing survey in late 2007 and was surprised to see how retailer priorities around sourcing have shifted. Low cost is a given (i.e. expected) but "finding and keeping dependable partners", and "lack of compliance to our specifications" were the two major issues keeping them up at night. While this is just a bit inconvenient for PL apparel retailers (those pesky erratic hem lengths) for food or pharma retailers it can indeed be a matter of life or death.
Those survey respondents recognized the importance of factory audits.
But you know, retailers aren't alone. I don't remember if you covered the Heparin recall, but the FDA actually said "Our software reminded us to audit the finished product made in California but didn't remind us we had to audit the ingredients...in this case made in China". The spokesperson actually said this!
Surprising this happened to Tesco, as the company is considered a leader in auditing its sourcing vendors. As you say "eternal vigilance".