When it comes to ensuring quality assurance, diligence involves delving into every detail.
 
For veteran Paul Storsin, quality assurance manager at Orlando Baking, one of the biggest quality assurance challenges involves reworking dough, or the process of taking scrap, trimmed or unused dough from one batch and recycling it to incorporate it into the next. It’s something that’s second nature in many bakeries, but few consider the consequences this long-time practice can have on today’s food safety protocols.

“As a part of our food safety program, we need to keep track of everything — including reworked dough — as a part of our recall process,” he said.


When reworking dough, he noted, the bakery may start with mixing 250 lb of dough, but at the end, about 30 lb of it carries over to the next batch. Operators need to separate the ingredients and the mixes.

“Otherwise, if you have any issue with a one-time mix, you don’t have to recall the products that you were making that day,” Mr. Storsin pointed out. “From my standpoint, the hardest and most important issue is to segregate and account for any carryover from one batch to another.”

When it comes to ensuring quality assurance, diligence involves delving into every detail.