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Safety and Reliability

Safety and Hygiene Management Systems

Aiming to Provide Safe Products

For the Starzen Group, which believes in putting the customer first, we consider it our important mission to provide safe foods that customers can rely on. Consequently, we established the Group Quality Assurance Department to ensure that food hygiene inspection is thoroughly implemented. A quality assurance officer is appointed at each business site, to check the hygiene management of the facility, product labeling, and related matters.
For Japanese domestic beef and pork, we have created a production history information trace back system to enable disclosure of the background of beef and pork to provide safe, reliable and trustworthy products with assured quality.

Fastidious Approach to Taste and Quality

The Starzen Group prioritizes the manufacture of safe and reliable products in order to deliver products that are trusted by customers. To that end, we established the Quality Assurance Department as described above. To further enforce our policies, each plant follows the HACCP food sanitation management system, and employs strict safety control over all processes from the stage of selecting good quality raw ingredients to delivery to customers.

Safe Quality Food (SQF)

The Starzen Group’s Iwaki Sales Office was the first distribution business to acquire SQF certification in Japan. and our Koriyama Plant was the first within our company to acquire it. To date, 57 sites across the group, including 20 plants, have acquired the certification (As of April 1, 2024).
In brief, SQF is a system that secures the safety and quality of food. More specifically, it establishes important quality points based on HACCP system to prevent safety and quality hazards, ensuring thorough process control in food handling, thereby contributing to stability in quality.

Starzen Group’s SQF

A First in Japan! Integrated Management from Production to Distribution Under SQF

SQF certification obtained at57Group locations within Japan

The Starzen Group has unified its external certifications under the SQF standard.
The integrated management structure we have built under SQF from production (farms) to distribution (business locations) is a first in Japan.

  • We prepared a standardized manual and obtained approval of the SQF certification body for its use.
    →Eliminates variations in quality control knowledge, ensuring uniform quality control.
  • We divided our business locations into multiple groups, and a representative location from each group undergoes the renewal assessment.　
    →Provides advantage of having business locations within each group work together on quality control.

SQF Initiatives

In order to acquire and retain SQF certification, it is imperative that safety and quality be ensured in all processes related to receipt, storage, processing/manufacture, packaging, transportation and shipment of products purchased and sold.
For this reason, we are engaged in the following efforts to maintain quality at each of our business sites.

Receiving

We purchase only from suppliers approved based on the SQF requirements and conduct inspections of appearance, labeling, temperature and other aspects of delivered products.

Storage

Checks ensure that products are kept in order, and in a freezer or refrigerator under strict temperature control.

Processing and manufacturing

Based on the SQF system, we strive to ensure thorough hygiene control in work environments, and to produce safe products.

Packaging

We check and review to display labels, and strive to communicate accurate information.

Shipment

We strictly manage temperature also during the distribution process. Furthermore, all products can be traced.

Hygiene management

We pay close attention to hygiene control at manufacturing plants in order to make safe and secure products.

Inspection

We conduct bacterial inspections and residual allergen tests to confirm that we can ensure safety.

Traceability

Discloser of the production trace back information

Starzen Group established a system of production trace back information on domestic cattle, and in February 2003, we started sharing this information, as one aspect of providing safe and reliable products. This information includes personal information from producers obtained with their consent, together with information provided by the National Livestock Breeding Center.
We also implemented this for Japanese pork from June 2004. Information regarding Japanese domestic cattle was made accessible from certain cell phones from September 2003.