Ensuring Quality and Safety for Consumers

Tomatoes are cleaned and conveyed with water.

This chart shows the percent of year-on-year risk
control improvement for Heinz Regions around
the world, our leading measure of quality.




Heinz workers in a small town in the Goulburn
Valley in Victoria, Australia, sort tomatoes
before they are processed. Waste water from
the factory is made available for farmers for
irrigation and stock use.

Ensuring Consistent Quality Performance
Heinz has a Global Quality Council that reports to Enterprise Risk Management and is chaired by our Chief Quality Officer. The Council meets quarterly to set consistent global quality strategies, and to identify and implement best practices throughout the Heinz organization.

Senior quality assurance directors from each of our six geographic regions: Europe, Africa and the Middle East, North America, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia participate in the Council and report to both World Headquarters and to the president or managing director of their respective Heinz affiliate. At the same time, our quality teams and supply chain partners are working together to enhance consistent product performance and quality with a focus on continuously meeting and exceeding customer and consumer expectations. This dual reporting structure helps us monitor and align standards and systems, and exchange information about best practices and quality assurance.

From time to time, food manufacturers are faced with unexpected quality issues that may lead to voluntary product recalls or other actions. In the last two fiscal years, Heinz has not had any significant product recalls. There were a very limited number of recall incidents; none representing a serious health risk. The vast majority involved mislabeling, where, as a precaution, Heinz opted to voluntarily recall the product in order to preserve consumer confidence.

In each of these cases, Heinz acted swiftly to take the appropriate action, while informing consumers and regulators of the mistake that occurred.

<< BACK       PRINT       NEXT >>

Copyright © 2007 H.J. Heinz Company. All rights reserved.