WEGMANS SEAFOOD CERTIFIED UNDER HACCP STANDARDS

PAMELA BLAMEY

Rochester, N.Y. -- Wegmans Food Markets, based here, has become the first major supermarket chain to be certified under U.S. Department of Commerce Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points standards for seafood.

"We are the first to bring not only our entire chain of stores but also our distribution system into the program," said Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natali. Seafood departments in each of the chain's 53 stores are participating in the program. "It was a two-year effort, which resulted in the redesign of our seafood distribution center, creation of an education program for seafood employees, and standardization of in-store handling practices," Natali said.

"This is another step in our nonstop efforts to bring the freshest and best of all foods to our customers," said Danny Wegman, president of the chain, in a statement. "When the USDC offered us the opportunity to help set the standards for the nation, we were pleased to lend our growing expertise to this effort. We think the results will help boost consumer confidence in seafood."

The next step is getting the message out to consumers.

"A very important piece of this is consumer education because HACCP is a new term for many retail consumers," Natali said. "So we are concentrating a great deal of effort on communicating the benefits of the HACCP service and what that means in terms of the quality of the product."

In addition to banners and buttons showing the new mark that denotes seafood HACCP certification, the chain produced a video to help educate customers.

"We have in our stores a video that is on a continuous loop in our seafood department and it walks consumers through the process from the time the fish arrives by plane, to when it arrives at the distribution center, to when it is trucked to our stores and handled in our stores, including the very important record-keeping that's done as a part of this program," said Natali.

Wegmans expects the certification to have a positive effect on consumers' perception of seafood.

"We hope that the knowledge that Wegmans is certified to meet these standards will raise consumer confidence in seafood and will mean greater sales," she added.

In addition, in its weekly newspaper ad, Wegmans added a wrap-around devoted to HACCP, which included an explanatory column written by the chain's director of consumer affairs, explaining what this means, as well as a letter from James Baker, Department of Commerce Secretary, acknowledging the certification.

"The HACCP process is graphically shown in the wrap, explaining where the critical points are and what is monitored at each of those points," Natali said. "We incorporated our seafood specials for that week into this wrap."

The certification is a result of two years of hard work with the Department of Commerce's seafood inspection service, according to DOC spokeswoman Rita Creitz.

"We started with training their personnel, many of whom went to our HACCP training course," Creitz said. "We worked with them to develop their HACCP plan, had many visits with them, reviewed their specifications and their labels, approved all of them, and worked with them on their labeling."

The mark that Wegmans developed for banners, balloons, hats and pins indicating the certification will now be accessible to all retailers who become certified, Creitz said. "We worked with them on that mark. That is now available for all HACCP participants within our seafood inspection program."

Creitz said that the fact that a chain of Wegmans' size has completed the program is very encouraging.

"Their entering into this is symbolic because it's the largest supermarket chain that's ever come into this program, so it's a major accomplishment," she said. "We learned a lot working with them, and they learned a lot from us, so it truly has been a partnership from beginning to end.

"They're very proactive, it's very clear that they're very customer-oriented, they spend a lot of effort explaining things to their employees, right down to the seafood counterperson."

So far, other retailer participants in the program, which has been available to importers, exporters and processors since 1992, include Harry's Farmers Market in Georgia, which has three locations certified, and an H.E. Butt Grocery store in Austin, Texas.

"Harry's has said that it's provided them -- as in their management and their employees -- a greater sense of control over things, a greater ability to take corrective action before it gets to be a problem," said Creitz. "One of the wonderful qualities about HACCP is that if you monitor along the way you can stop things before they get to the customer."

Although other retailers are in the process of developing HACCP plans, she said, "we don't have any other big chains immediately ready to step in. We've had conversations with Stop & Shop and Kroger, and they're still thinking about it.

"The rumor is that other retailers are watching very closely what's going to happen with Wegmans."

Now that Wegmans is certified, inspectors will periodically visit its facilities to ensure compliance.

"Our regional inspection branch employees will be going into the stores unannounced and they will be performing an audit, which is a little bit different approach than a hands-on inspection," Creitz explained. "They're looking at the records, they're making sure that employees/plant managers are doing what they're supposed to be doing, as well as looking at the overall condition of the seafood itself."

The frequency of the inspections is directly related to the chain's success in maintaining compliance. "The better Wegmans manages and follows their HACCP plan, the less we have to be there, so initially when a plant first comes into our program, we're obviously there a lot more often. If something falls off along the way, then we step up the frequency."