British Retail Consortium assesses Meatco

By Hilary Mare

MEAT Corporation of Namibia (Meatco) recently underwent an online risk assessment for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) annual audit on Covid-19.

The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern on January 30 2020 and since then, businesses globally have had to find ways to ensure the smooth continuation of operations.

Meatco’s senior corporate communications officer, Jethro Kwenani explained the importance of the audit to the corporation at this time highlighting market continuity as a key imperative.

“The BRC audit remains a fundamental accreditation to Meatco, as it allows the corporation to continue trading with existing markets while opening up possible new marketing opportunities.

“All our audits and accreditation assist the organisation in defining, establishing and maintaining effective food safety and quality assurance systems for the industry,” Kwenani told Confidente this week.

Russell Simpson, an auditor from KIWA BRC, probed Meatco’s risk assessment based on the Covid-19 and the interventions in place coupled with possible mitigations in the event of cases picking up at the factory to avoid any infections at plant level and throughout the entire business.

Meatco presented the Covid-19 management plan which was formulated to mitigate possible Covid-19 infections to avoid any operational disruptions and ensure customer confidence in Meatco’s operations.

Further, general information that the auditor required was also provided and the risk audit was concluded.

“The risk assessment audit conducted is part of the BRC standards onsite audits. Meatco needed to have this assessment done for it to receive an extension on the current certification that expires this month.

“Meatco did not have any findings from this audit thus our certificate was extended for six months which is until December 2020 and the next audit is scheduled for August 2020,” the corporation said.

BRC has membership comprising over 5 000 businesses delivering £180 billion of retail sales and employing over one and half million employees.