DSM quality seal responds to consumer reliability demands

The seal is intended to formalise the company’s existing safety and quality assurance practices, tracing every ingredient along the entire food chain while protecting customers from interruptions of supply. In addition, it aims to ensure that ingredients are produced in an ethical and socially responsible way, and takes occupational safety into account throughout the sourcing and production process.

Following a spate of food safety scares, including avian flu and melamine contamination, the company recognises that there is heightened scepticism around ingredient safety, and companies are increasingly being called into question about the origin and sustainability of their ingredients.

DSM intends to use the leverage of its position as a trusted ingredients producer to provide both its customers in the industry and end consumers with an ingredient brand which ensures peace of mind and protects its customers’ reputations from the potentially devastating consequences of food safety scares.

However, the Quality for Life seal is not only an ingredient-branding exercise. The company hopes that it will help to cement its reputation as a producer that adheres to safety standards and regulations which differ throughout the world. The new seal “gives customers a tangible certification of our promise,” it said.

DSM launched a similar seal called Quali-C in March 2007, which was specific to vitamin C, to differentiate its Scottish-sourced ingredient from cheaper Asian-produced material. It said at the time that part of the reason for introducing the Quali-C brand was consumer demand for ingredient traceability, for which it claimed consumers were prepared to pay a premium.