Quality

Hangana Seafood’s Food Safety and Quality Policy Statement stipulate that the Senior Management of Hangana will ensure that:

-  We supply products that always meet customer and consumer expectations
-   We fullfil our obligation to produce safe and legally complaint products of the highest quality without additives and Genetically Modified Organisms
-  We shall establish, implement, maintain, review and continually improve our Food Safety and Quality Management System

Certification

For this reason, the company’s Quality Assurance Department is responsible for food safety and the production of high-quality products. This is accomplished through strict adherence to our Integrated Quality Management System, which is based on the European Union (EU), British Retail Consortium (BRC) and ISO 22000 Food Safety Standards.

This system does not only rely on final product checks, but also on preventing possible quality variations and/or food safety risks – from harvesting the raw materials, to dispatching the final product to the customer.

Laboratory

Hangana Seafood’s in-house laboratory complies with and works according to internationally accepted Good Laboratory Practices (GLPs) and, in accordance with ISO 17025, conducts microbiological tests on raw materials, final products, ice, and fresh water as well as purified sea water. Additional swab tests (microbiological tests on surfaces) are performed to verify the efficiency of our required programmes.

Microbiological tests like the following are mostly conducted to detect the presence of indicator organisms:

- Total viable (bacterial) count (TVC)
- Enterobacteriaceae
- Escherichia coli (E. coli)
- Faecal coliforms
- Thermotolerant coliforms

Monthly product samples are sent to externally accredited laboratories, while comparison tests are conducted to verify the competence of testing, and to verify in-house results. Samples are tested for pathogens, heavy metals and chemicals such as the following:

- Pathogens
  - Clostridium botulinum
  - Listeria monocytogenes
  - Salmonella sp.
  - Shigella sp.
  - Staphylococcus aureus
  - Vibrio cholerae
  - Vibrio parahaemolyticus

- Heavy metals
  - Cadmium
  - Lead
  - Mercury

- Chemicals
  - Formaldehyde
  - Total Volatile Basic Nitrogen (TVB-N)

Organoleptic (sensory) tests – where the product is cooked and tasted – are also done as a daily routine for every processed product.