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CHALLENGE
A distributor of a bottled beverage product required Premier’s professional expertise in food product investigation case near Ottawa, Ontario. The bottled products distribution store was located in a shopping mall, where there was a fire in an adjacent store. Though the fire did not spread into our client’s store, smoke from the fire entered the store’s ventilation system, potentially damaging the beverage product from possible toxic soot deposits on the beverage containers. According to Canadian Food and Drug Regulations, any product with contaminant present on its packaging is not fit for sale or consumption. At the time of the incident there was about $250,000 of product in the store that could be rendered a waste.
APPROACH
This project was particularly challenging due to absence of a standard testing procedure for such a case. The first challenge in the project was to identify a proper approach to the testing of contamination. Designing a methodology that would consider multiple contamination sources and possibilities presented the first challenge in the process. The second challenge in the project was the design of the specific quantifying testing procedure itself. Because of the wide array of available testing techniques, it was a challenge to determine the technique that would provide the most reliable contaminant measures. Premier’s forensic experts worked diligently to assess the potential impact to the bottled product in a very timely manner.
BUSINESS SOLUTION
In conclusion, Premier was able to determine that there was no measurable concentration of toxic substances on the beverage containers and the product was put back on the shelf for sale before it expired. Although the cost of the product was reduced to “fire sale prices” the client was able to avoid a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damaged product.