Certification Services for Farms and Farm Dairies
AsureQuality's on farm team provides a wide range of on farm and farm dairy certification services to New Zealand farmers.
Farm Dairy Certification Services
- Farm Assessment Programme
- Farm Dairy Approvals
- Farm Dairy Assessment
- Milk Machine Efficiency Tests
- Milk Component Audit
- Inhibitory Substance Trace-backs
- Grade Trace-backs
- Testing for Suspected Milk Contamination
- Milk Cooling Validation
- Soil DDT Sampling
On Farm Certification Services
- Good Manufacturing Practice
- On Farm Quality Management
- CAE Certification for Goat Herds
- Tanker Road Assessments
- Organic Certification
- Risk Management Programme Evaluation
- Live Animal Export & Load Out Checks
- Heat Treatment
- Stock Crate QA
- Farm Audits for Meat / Wool Companies
- Exceptions & Dispositions
- National Chemical Contaminants Programme (NCCP)
Farm Assessment Programme
Our Farm Network can make your farm more profitable through improved efficiency and healthier livestock.
On-Farm Quality Management Programmes for Milk Producers cover four main areas:
- Checking of farm cleaning systems
- Solving milk quality problems
- Identifying animal health problems
- Identifying record keeping deficiencies
We can help farmers to implement a management plan to bring these four areas up to an approved or higher standard.
Farm Dairy Approvals
AsureQuality performs pre-start assessments to ensure your dairy farm has been properly set-up. The approval ensures all key steps of the dairy build are compliant. This includes assessing the initial site for construction, monitoring the dairy building process, final sign-off and ensuring equipment has been properly fitted.
Farm-Dairy Assessment
AsureQuality conducts an annual Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) assessment on every dairy farm in the lower North Island and upper South Island to ensure minimum standards in sanitation, structures and facilities, regulatory requirements, quality management and environmental issues are met.
Milk machine efficiency tests
Milking plants need to be tested at least annually to minimise any loss of production or milk quality defects through teat damage or mastitis, it is recommended that the We can provide independent and accurate assessments of milking plant efficiency. Any minor faults will be corrected and rechecked during the test. A comprehensive report detailing performance and recommendations is provided.
Milk component audit
Dairy Companies contract AsureQuality to randomly select farms and test the make-up of milk samples to ensure the dairy farmer is being paid fairly.
Grade trace-backs
We work alongside farmers to fix the problems associated with poor milk quality. This includes assessing all the points in the diagram below, finding faults and making recommendations on how the grade can be lifted.
Inhibitory substance trace-backs
When a milk test is positive to an inhibitory substance as indicated from a dairy factory, AsureQuality is able to audit dairy systems and records. The enables them to find out the source and then the cause of the contamination and establish how it can be prevented from reoccurring. An inhibitory substance can be a whole milk failure or a colostrum failure and usually due to the milk from a cow under treatment of anti-biotics being mixed into the vat for tanker collection.
Testing of suspected milk contamination
If you suspect your milk has been contaminated by antibiotics, we are able to conduct rapid detection tests (Charm test and Delvo test) to confirm whether contamination has occurred.
For testing, you can either bring the suspected contaminated milk into an AsureQuality office in a clean container to have it tested there, or we can go out to your farm and test it there.
Soil DDT sampling
AsureQuality can provide soil DDT testing in the South Island, as a condition to dairy conversion and approval to supply. This service is provided for any farmer but predominantly is utilised by those farmers converting farms to Dairy operations or for Dairy grazing. The determined DDT levels will indicate the suitability of the land for the intended enterprise.
National Chemical Contaminants Programme (NCCP)
An independently taken milk sample, tested at reference laboratories for the presence of chemical residues.
On-Farm Quality Management
We audit minimum standards set by dairy companies for the control of animal health treatments and monitoring of hygiene and cleanliness.
CAE certification for goat herds
We test and certify for Voluntary Caprine Encephalitis and Arthritis (CEA) for goat farmers who wish to control and eradicate the disease from their herds for animal health and commercial benefits.
Tanker road assessments
Tankers are crucial to the dairy industry, therefore dairy farms need adequate roads and bridges. AsureQuality is able to assess your dairy farm for tanker safety.
Stock crate quality assurance
We certify stock crates to an industry standard of animal welfare, hygiene and product quality under the auspices of the Road Transport Forum. This standard is used by major meat processors as part of their 'paddock to plate' quality assurance programmes.
Risk Management Programme evaluation
You may require an evaluation as a consequence of a significant change to the RMP (Risk Management Programme), processors and scope. Our NZFSA-approved evaluators can evaluate your Company’s Risk Management Programme. They provide a full report on conclusion outlining non-conformances [if any] along with the corrective action time lines and final close out.
Note: An RMP evaluation will normally consist of a desk top assessment however the evaluator may be required to carry out on site activities in order to complete the evaluation.
Milk cooling validation
Cooling validation tests are conducted using Tiny-tags (yellow data loggers) time and temperature readings are taken from two places the vat and the milk delivery line at the primary source as illustrated below. Suppliers are required to comply with the temperature and times highlighted below.
Live animal export and load out checks
We combine our skills to ensure that live export animals are correctly tested and sampled and that both isolation and transport facilities are approved. These animals are also supervised by a MAF veterinarian both at the isolation site and during the load out. Due to stringent specifications we also oversee the result interpretation and matching, paper validation, stock matching and liase with the MAF vet for the export certificate.
Farm audits for meat / wool Companies
AsureQuality perform on-farm audits for various customers ranging from the meat industry to the wool industry. All farm audits are completed by suitably qualified AsureQuality auditors and coverage is across New Zealand and parts of Australia.
Some customers have their farm assurance programmes recognised to ISO/IEC Guide 65, which is an International standard administered by JAS-ANZ. As part of this standard AsureQuality make a certification decision based on the audit findings.
Our customers include:
- AFFCO
- Alliance
- Bernard Matthews
- CERCO
- CMP
- Five Star Beef
- New Zealand Association of Game Estates
- Riverlands
- Silver Fern Farms
- Te Kuiti Meat Processors
- The New Zealand Merino Company
