Planning post-storage packing and distribution of fruit

• Identify the intended customer.
• Plan packing against a known customer programme.
• Ensure all personnel involved in the packing operation are fully conversant with the customer specification requirements, including all aspects of packaging.
• Most multiple customers require dedicated crates, customised packaging and labelling.
• Ensure sufficient stock of correct packaging is available to meet the programme.
• Ensure all operatives have had induction training on site health and safety issues.
• Ensure all on-line operatives have been trained for their specific tasks.
• Ensure all equipment is in good working order, fit for purpose and calibrated where applicable.
• Calibration records should be kept, with clear reference to identified equipment. This is particularly relevant to scales for weighing product on-line and for QC equipment.
• It is a legal requirement that all product sold by minimum weight must be weighed on scales that have been DTI stamped i.e. approved by the Department of Trade and Industry, now Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). Any calibration by a certified engineer must have been carried out with weights traceable to national standards and identified as such on any calibration certificate.
• A certified engineer should calibrate equipment at least once a year and more frequently on a busy site.
• Calibration checks on scales must take place at least once a day before starting a production run and ideally at the end of the batch. Calibration weights should take account of the intended range in weights i.e. check using weights that represent the bottom and top end of the range.
• Penetrometers, refractometers, thermometers, QC sizing rings and all scales must be calibrated regularly.
• Identify labelling requirements and ensure equipment and associated software will produce labels compliant with customer specification.
• Identify and install QC procedures required to meet customer requirements.