[Cover Profile] California Natural Products

In the environmental arena, California has a history of leading the nation in early adoption and strictness of standards. So it is of little surprise that the state was the first to create an organization to certify organic farms (1973); the first to sign into law a state organic food act (1979), and the home of California Natural Products (CNP), which began operations in 1980 as a pioneer of organic and natural foods.

Over the next few decades, the definitions of organic and related statutes were to continue to evolve on both the state and national levels, with Congress passing the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990, requiring USDA to develop national standards and regulations, and the first proposed National Organic Program (NOP) released in 1997 and passed into regulation in 2002.

"It took 20 years of active work to come up with these organic reg-
ulations," said CNP General Manager, Ingredients, John Ashby. "And CNP was involved in portions of it from the beginning." Ashby himself was in product development with a flavor ingredients company prior to joining CNP, and has been involved with the organic regulatory process for those 20 years. "I’ve been arguing with certifiers about what to do for at least 15 years," he said.

Although NOP defines specific criteria for the farming and production of foods permitted to bear organic label-ing, the organic community continues to disagree within itself, with some believing the term should apply only to produce or completely unprocessed foods. "There is a federal definition, but that doesn’t mean there is one homo-geneous organic group, all of whom believe exactly the same thing. They don’t," Ashby said.

And the specifications of natural have lagged even further, with only murky definitions and little regulation.

CNP Application. With organic foods making up about half of CNP’s food production; a focus on natural ingredients and processes closely simulating organic standards; and sustainability at the core of its aseptic packaging operations and world class manufacturing processes, environ-mentalism in all its aspects is a pri-mary focus of CNP.

As may be expected at a company so rooted in California, natural ingredients and organic products, CNP sets standards for both its organic and aseptic processes well beyond those of even this strict state.

Aseptic packaging involves the process of achieving food sterility through ultra-high-temperature heat treatment for a very short time, approximately 285˚F for five seconds, explained Aseptic Operations Manager Emil Skaria. "This provides shelf life without the use of preservatives and maintains the nutritional value of the food at ambient temperatures."

Achieving food sterility requires sterilizing of the pre-processed food itself, the processing equipment and the packaging, with almost every step being a Critical Control Point. "There are a lot of CCPs to making the process sterile," said Quality Manager Bruce Ferree. "When we say sterilize, that can be 15 different things," Ferree said. So the company groups the CCPs into five key steps:

1. Pre-sterilize the processor

2. Sterilize the food

3. Pre-sterilize the filler

4. Properly sterilize the packaging material

5. Trace, track and test for metal

The process. Aseptic packaged products produced by CNP consist of both its own and co-packed products, including rice milk, soy milk, hemp milk, teas, soups, broths and meal replacement products. During harvest, the plant often operates round the clock, producing soups from the fresh vegetables.

While specifications vary by product, the general process flows through:

1. Extraction/Pre-processing – Depending on the product being produced, the process begins with extraction from the plant (rice, soy, hemp) or pre-processing of vegetables, meat and poultry (soup, broth).

2. Mix Blend – Ingredients such as cocoa, sugars, vitamins and min-erals are mixed and blended into a smooth homogenous liquid. Mixing temperatures range from 40˚F to 180˚F.

3. VTIS – Vacuum Thermal Instantaneous Sterilization is a direct steam injection and vacuum cooling process that sterilizes the product to eradicate any microorganisms and provide shelf stability.

4. Packaging – Filling machines, run by licensed operators, package the product under sterile conditions, putting out 6,000–7,000 packs per hour. A package integrity station is set up on each line, at which the filler operator removes packages to check seams, seals and labels at least once every half hour. In addition, Ferree said, "Every time you change a strip or change the paper, you have to recheck the package integrity."

"It’s more complex than canning," Ferree said, and because of the sterility needs, "it’s a lot more sophisticated."

California codes. The general processing of CNP’s various products flows along similar lines, but, Ferree said, "the process changes with the product," with resulting variations in critical controls such as temperature and flow rate. In California, however, it is the state which determines the spec-ifications for low-acid canned foods and acidified foods. Under the California Department of Health Services Food and Drug Branch Cannery Inspection Program, laboratory scientists are responsible for determining the critical factors that must be controlled and monitored during processing to prevent the growth of C. botulinum.

CNP’s aseptic packaging also falls under this program by which state personnel audit all critical process steps, review the performance of the processor, and identify and quarantine foods during CCP failures or other hazardous situations. In addition, processor and filler operators who run sterilization equipment at facilities subject to program regulations are required to be licensed, with state personnel admin-istering the written exams and performance evaluations.

"The state is in here every day reviewing records," Ferree said. But while California sets the standards for SOPs, he added, "we ensure we exceed the state’s expectations."

The aseptic package. While package sterilization is important even for home canning, the high heat to which a "canned" product is subjected provides a final check to destroy bacteria, molds and yeasts. With aseptic packaging, this final heating step is avoided, enabling the food to retain a higher nutritive value but mandating even stricter sterility controls.

The packaging comes into the plant as separate rolls of paper and plastic which must be prepped, sterilized, then retained in a sterile environment:

1. The rolls of paper and plastic strips are fed into a machine which applies the plastic to the non-printed side of the paper to create the inside liner.

2. A hole is punched at what will be the top of each package, then sealed with a plastic "pull tab" for consumer access.

3. The prepped packaging is fed into the sterilizer where it is run through a 30-40 percent peroxide sterilant. This solution is not used on wine packaging, however, as it would react with the product.

4. The sterile packaging is fed into a sterile gas chamber heated with incinerated air (300˚C) and through squeegee rollers and air blowers to remove all the sterilant.

5. The paper is wrapped and hermet-ically heat sealed to form a tube.

6. The liquid product is dispensed into the tube, the tube is squeezed to- gether at what will be the top and bottom of each container, hermetically heat sealed, cut and folded to form the lined cardboard package.

In addition to better maintaining the nutritive value of the product, aseptic processing is a factor of CNP’s ded-ication to sustainability. With aseptic packaging, "You’re primarily shipping product versus package," said Chief Operating Officer Marc Weinstein. "In terms of renewable resources, three quarters of this package is a renewable resource whereas plastic is zero, as it is made from oil."

In addition, the aseptic packaging:

• is transported to the plant in rolls, with one truckload of paper reels equal to 26 truckloads of glass containers.
• has a higher product to package ratio (94%) than the egg (87%) – which is considered to be the "perfect packaging."
• provides a "green" form of completely recyclable packaging for the consumer.
• increases fuel efficiency of transport, with a carbon footprint of 42 grams per liter versus glass at 150 and plastic at 170.

World Class Manufacturing. California regulations. Cannery codes. Organic audits. Aseptic sterility. For most processors, the extent of the SOPs required by the various programs under which CNP must operate would be more than enough to meet its internal expectations of quality. But CNP takes its process a step further, implementing World Class Manufacturing (WCM) methodology, simply defined by WCM Manager Greg Michael as "continuous improvement through employee involvement. We try to get all our people involved."

At CNP, WCM is geared to support its mission to achieve full customer satisfaction by providing "superior products and services at a competitive cost on time" through a three-part application:

1. Total Quality Approach which supports the goal of superior prod-ucts. "If everything we do is of the highest quality, then we can ensure that the product we’re delivering is of the highest quality," Michael said.

2. Total Productive Maintenance supporting on-time delivery. Maintaining equipment, so it runs as expected on time every time, enables the company to deliver the product to the customer as promised.

3. Continuous Improvement to support competitive pricing. By always getting better and doing things quicker, CNP can keep its costs in line which enables it to keep prices in line for its customers.

The company has been actively involved with implementing WCM since 2000, deciding on this methodology because, Michael said, "We get better results and better sustainability. If the end user of whatever we’re trying to continuously improve is involved in coming up with the solution, then they’re going to be more apt to sustain it, because it was their idea."

An example Michael gave of this was an ongoing issue with packaging splitting open once or twice a week causing the product to spill within the machinery, and requiring a complete stoppage and cleaning of the line to return it to sterile conditions. "We got the team together and asked ‘Why is this happening?’ ‘What can we do?’" Michael said. Through review and discussion of the problem, the team was able to rule out causes due to the product or equipment, and eventually determined it to be a lack of specifics in the SOPs. "It left a lot of grey areas where the operator could determine what was the best way," Michael said.

Rewriting these standards to the single best way reduced the occurrence by more than half. "We utilized our people to solve a problem that was plaguing us in the plant," Michael said. "By utilizing all our employees, we came up with a better solution. And the best thing about that is it’s sustainable because they came up with it."

WCM is also applied cross-function-ally to help departments understand how to best support each other, and is required in the operational and maintenance areas, with the operations and maintenance teams working together to solve problems, Michael added. But the most important aspect is that of continuous improvement. "Once we implement an improvement, we don’t ever want to just stay there," he said.

The process has worked well for the company enabling significant improvement over the last several years. From fiscal year 2005 to 2008, CNP has:

• improved first pass quality by a full percent.
• increased line efficiency by more than 10 percentage points.
• increased finished goods order fulfillment to 99.9 percent.
• reduced package material waste by almost a full percentage point.
• reduced recordable incident injury rate by over 65 percent to about one-fourth of the industry average.

"The way we see it, safety is first, then quality, then productivity," Skaria said. "If it is not safe, the employee will not be there. If it is not a quality prod-uct, it doesn’t matter how much you produce because the customer won’t buy it."

While it is dedicated to maintain-ing the standards of WCM, aseptic packaging, organic foods and California processing, meeting standards is not the reason that CNP strives for quality, Weinstein affirmed. Rather, if a company is to be its best, he said, "You really need to focus on: What is your objective? Is it to get certified? Is it to improve results? Or is it both? Or is it to get a plaque on the wall?"

At CNP, Weinstein said, "We have really tried to focus on the things that will enable us to improve our results for customers and ourselves."

The author is managing editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@giemedia.com.