“I could eat a horse. In fact, I probably have.”

Managing director of FB Chain Peter Church says the unfolding horse meat scandal should make every company – particularly those supplying safety critical components – review their product recall systems.

Like many others, I have followed the unfolding ‘horse meat scandal’ with a mixture of amusement and horror. Only time will tell what the full impact of the issue will be on some of the UK’s leading high street brands – but, as their key personnel continue to squirm under the media spotlight, it is hard to see a positive outcome.

Having to recall a batch or an entire production run of a product, due to the discovery of safety issues is every company’s nightmare scenario.

But for a business that supplies safety critical products or components, any hint of a product fault is particularly terrifying. The idea that someone has become seriously injured – or worse – as a result of some fault with the products that your firm has supplied, is the stuff of sleepless nights.

FB Chain Ltd has been involved in supplying lifting parts for over 25 years and, as part of our standard business process, we are able to track every order back to manufacturing data and raw material certificates.

On the handful of occasions in our history when we have decided to recall a product, our systems have enabled us to proactively contact every customer involved giving them their purchase date, order number, delivery location and equipment reference if they provided it when ordering.

I have every confidence in our processes and our suppliers, but – in light of the ‘horse meat’ debacle – our team will be double checking and testing our own and our suppliers’ systems and re-asking about traceability back through our supply chain.

It’s a shame some of Europe’s leading food processors and retailers do not have similarly robust systems in place.