Transcription of Feed Strategy Chat with Dik Wolters, scheme and customer service adviser, GMP+ International
Jackie Roembke, editor in chief, WATT Feed Brands/Feed Strategy: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Feed Strategy Chat. I’m your host, Jackie Roembke, editor in chief of WATT Feed Brands and Feed Strategy magazine.
This edition of Feed Strategy Chat is brought to you by WATT Global Media and FeedStrategy.com. FeedStrategy.com is your source for the latest news and leading-edge analysis of the global animal feed industry.
Today we’re joined by Dik Wolters with GMP+International. The GMP+ Feed Certification scheme is the largest and most widely recognized feed safety scheme in the world, with over 19,000 GMP+ certified companies in over 87 countries. He's here to discuss how feed producers can improve ingredient sampling.
Hi Dik, how are you today?
Dik Wolters, scheme and customer service adviser, GMP+ International: Yes, hi, Jackie, yeah, I'm fine. I'm having a great time here. It's sunny weather, and I'm enjoying here today.
Roembke: Wonderful, excellent. It's a little cloudy and rainy here, but you know, that's how summer is. But let's get right into it. Will you please explain how green sampling contributes to overall feed safety and quality in the manufacturing process?
Wolters: Yes, thank you for this question. I think it's an important question. Taking samples is very important in the whole process of managing the feed, safety assurance and the quality of the feed, because samples give you the information about the products, which you produce. And they give you information about the quality, the integrity, the safety — and especially for cereals. This is important because this is a very, well, let's say, a variable product. There can be a lot of contaminants in this, in the cereals, like mycotoxins, pesticides, heavy metals.
Of course, we cannot, when we use the cereals in the feed, we cannot test the whole batch. So that's why we take a sample. It gives us information, and it gives us knowledge about the quality and the safety of this whole batch. I would say, yeah, and that's important. I want to add with this information, we can make the right decisions about how we can use the product or if it meets the specifications, which we expect the product to have.
Roembke: And you mentioned decision-making. Is there anything else to explore regarding the importance of proper sampling throughout the production chain?
Wolters: I think it's very important to make a good decision because you have a representative sample. If the sample does not represent the whole batch, and if you test the sample, you might make the wrong decision for how to use the batch. It can go in both ways, actually, and that's especially important in grains. When you talk about grains for, say, contaminants, which are not evenly distributed in the product, like mycotoxins, for instance. So if you take a sample in the wrong way, and if you just take a sample from the part of the grain the batch where mycotoxins are there because there's mold growing, and then you test the sample, you might decide, 'hey, this batch is contaminated with mycotoxins,' which is actually only a small part.
And it also goes the other way. If you take a sample from, say, a clean part of the batch, and you do not test, take a sample in the right way and miss you miss the mycotoxin part in this batch, you might decide to use the batch, for instance, for dairy feed, and that also could give you a lot of problems.
So a representativeness of the bad for the sample is actually the key word here that's really important and not always easy to achieve.
Roembke: What are some other common challenges or mistakes when sampling cereals?
Wolters: I think representative is the most important thing, because, if not a representative sample, like I said, you make the wrong decisions. And the other thing is you should have people who can take the sample. That is also important, and therefore you need to train your personnel, your staff. And also, for instance, during harvest, it's extremely busy time of the year, you need to have enough people to take the samples. Now, a lot of companies they use today automated sampling equipment, which is extremely helpful because they are working 24/7, and they take representative samples. And another thing, which also sometimes we see companies they don't have enough storage facilities to store all these samples and to store them also in a proper way. So that's also a challenge sometimes for companies.
Roembke: Great. Tell us a little bit about GMP+’s sampling course and what attendees will learn there.
Wolters: This sampling course, Jackie, it's a part of a whole series of 15 micro learnings, and it's basically meant to create awareness about proper sampling. It's not so much that we, in detail, instruct companies how to sample step-to-step in the whole process, but we try to create awareness about what equipment do you use, and make sure that you use clean and dry equipment. What product are you going to sample? Is that a wet product or is that a dry product? That also makes a difference in the equipment, the labeling and storing of the samples is also important training of your personnel.
What do they need to know? They need to know, in our opinion, at least the products they are sampling. They need to know the different aspects of the product — that all is important to take a good sample. And a good sample is, as I explained in the beginning, it's important to make the right and the correct decisions about the whole batch.
Roembke: Excellent. And in your experience, what impact can improve sampling methods have on a feed manufacturer's bottom line?
Wolters: Now, the impact you can make wrong decisions, for instance, in answering the question, does this product need specs? You can make a wrong decision, and that can give you a lot of trouble, and that can also cost a lot of money. Proper sampling, correct sampling, is extremely important to make right decisions to help the companies to save money and troubles when they produce products and place that on the market.
Roembke: Excellent. Thank you so much for more information about GMP+ International and its different training modules, please visit their site, https://www.gmpplus.org/. Thank you so much, Dik, and thanks to you for tuning in.