Quality

Product safety and hygiene

The quality of Madama Oliva’s products is born from the knowledge of the product’s origin, the accurate selection of the raw materials , the production process, and the rapport between the company and the client/consumer, involving also our well organized network of sales representatives.

Our work is done with great responsibility, giving particular attention to our products and the environment, all in accordance with legislative decrees and certifications.

Consumer safety , from the hygienic-sanitary point of view, is the most important issue for Madama Oliva. Since 1988 a self-checking programme on the company premises has been implemented to ensure product safety and hygiene in accordance to the Legislative Decree n° 155 of the year 1997, known as HACCP. This allows the company to keep under control the critical phases of the production process, preventing the risks of chemical-physical and microbiological contamination of the product. The controls are carried out by an in-house staff of biologists in the company’s well equipped modern laboratory.

In 1988 the company obtained certification for its Quality Management System and is now in compliance with the norm ISO 9001:2000; by means of this management system the company is able to:

• keep under control all the aspects that can affect product quality ,but also in an overall manner the company’s performance
• find and identify ways to make improvements in order to always satisfy the needs and requirements of its clients

In 2004 the company obtained certification for its Environmental Management System in compliance with the norm ISO 14001, because Madama Oliva believes that it is important to do everything in its power in order to respect the environment in which it lives and operates. For this reason enviromental Audits were carried out at the company in accordance with the requisites of the attached II of the regulations CE n° 761 of the year 2001.

In 2006 we obtained other certifications that underline the commitment and reliability of Madama Oliva:

BRC – “Global Food Standard” is a document issued by the British Retail Consortium in 1998 to guarantee that brand name products are produced in accordance to well defined quality standards and also respecting minimum requisites. It can be compared to specifications that bind the suppliers to the distribution company.

IFS – “International Food Standard " is a document issued by HDE trade services (Hauptverband des Deutschen Einzelhandels) and FCD (Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution). It is an operative instrument that qualifies its suppliers in regards to quality, safety and conformity in accordance to food product decrees.

Both Standards examine the Quality Management System and also the Health, Hygiene and Safety System of food products in the food industry and define the qualifying requisites that food suppliers must conform to, to be able to enter the various markets with brand name products.

The BRC standard and the IFS standard are becoming ever more requested and necessary for Italian companies that want to export and have as clients European distribution chains (English, French, German), in that having international recognition they are able to satisfy the needs of all their European clients.

The company’s strong points

• CONTINUOUS TRAINING OF THE STAFF: the in-house personnel is constantly supervised, trained and updated in all the procedures, innovations and changes in the company ; to ensure a high level of professionalism, our personnel often attend external training and refresher courses
• PRODUCT RESEARCH : in the last few years a collaboration has started with the Department of Food and Nutrition of the University of Perugia, with whom the company works to constantly improve the products it offers. Currently the company is the first in Italy to be working on setting up an all natural biological fermentation and debittering process for table olives in large quantities, so as to assure stable and natural raw materials throughout the whole year.
• PRODUCT QUALITY , SAFETY, AND HYGIENE : the company’s qualified staff, taking advantage of the in-house laboratory, carries out controls on all production lots on a random basis , monitoring all the various steps of the production process and assuring the correct application of the procedures used . The results of the controls are available upon request of the customer . Currently the possibility of making available these results on line is being studied, so that the company’s customers can have all the relative information concerning the product lots they have received, simply by connecting themselves to Madama Oliva’s Internet site.
• FLEXIBILITY: our staff of production technicians is able to create a custom-made production process and packaging on detailed request of the client