Quality & food safety

Quality seed. Gentle processing.

The Vandamme Group is proud to be working with selected suppliers. This selection takes place based on quality, sustainability and socially-responsible management. The supply of the oil germ is subject to strict supervision on the use of Good Agricultural Practices. We only use non-GMO raw materials of European origin.

Quality is and remains the outcome of human action. Due to technological progress, we can increase the quality and keep careful track of it.

In the crushing process, it is important to continuously control the oil and cake qualities of the presses. For the extraction and refinery department, the quality is rigorously assured by our own quality control lab at the level of the different process steps and not only based on the finished products. The integration of our refinery and crushing department ensures that only freshly-produced raw vegetable oils are refined without any form of interim storage, refrigeration, heating or any treatment at all. This also gives us the required certainty regarding the origin of the raw oils, since they are produced in our own factory.

The Vandamme Group uses a physical refining process. Apart from a small dose of organic acidulant, citric acid, no other chemicals are used in the degumming process during physical refining. All the process steps are carried out physically. Careful control of the temperatures guarantees very low trans fat acid levels in refined oils. Each step within our production process is developed under strict hygienic conditions and in a closed system, which almost completely eliminates any risk of potential contamination. By using physical refining, no soap stocks or washing waters are used, which makes this refinery method very environmentally friendly.

In 1997, the Vandamme Group implemented the HACCP quality control system, which led to the system being certified in the autumn of 2001. Since 2012 the company is FSSC22000 certified. HACCP is a structured approach that controls the safety of products for the consumer or user. The objective of our quality system is to continuously improve the organisation, the quality of our products and services and the work environment, and to reduce and prevent the impact on the environment. Each year, the Vandamme Group undergoes several audits by accredited certification agencies and customers.

The high-protein products are sold to the cattle feed sector. For those products, Ovocom awarded us our FCA certification in the spring of 2002.
In the context of our in-house controls, traceability has a very high priority for us. All end products can be traced back to the raw materials within a very short period of time.

In addition, we have obtained the necessary guarantees from our suppliers that the raw materials they deliver to us can also be traced with the shortest possible delay. This provides certainty that food safety and quality have been safeguarded within the activity of every link in the chain.

Due to the high turnover of our production, we can guarantee the freshness of our products at all times.

In addition to internal analyses, analyses of the refined vegetable oils are carried out in the context of our extensive monitoring plan, by several accredited external labs. This includes analyses for:

• Pesticides
• Mycotoxins
• PAKs
• Dioxins (dioxins such as PCB and non-dioxins such as PCB)
• Heavy metals
• MCPD esters

Kosher: The Vandamme Group has been Kosher certified. A certificate can be made available on request.

Allergens: Neither refined corn oil nor refined high oleic sunflower oil are known allergens (European Directive 2003/89/EG).

GMO: In conformity with EU regulations EC/1829/2003 and EC/1830/2003, we only obtain raw materials from conventional non-GMO origin.

The Vandamme Group signed up to the Benchmarking Covenant in 2003. An energy plan was produced with measures in order to work as efficiently as possible.