Mix and match to create your own masterpieces.

Supplier Selection

Our process begins with a risk assessment and a review of a supplier’s critical control point programs (CCP), allergen controls, food safety standards and practices, and traceability programs. Additionally, we invest in “boots on the ground” auditing resources and require an in-person facility audit before a supplier can be qualified. This “boots on the ground” support is provided for domestic as well as our international suppliers.

For larger, multi-site vendors, additional resources are utilized to ensure all required check points are validated. We believe this is a meaningful difference in delivering on our customers’ quality expectations versus many of our competitors who rely on an arms-length document review process.

Additionally, our process doesn’t end with qualification. We work with our approved suppliers to continuously monitor and “raise the bar” on quality. We share best practices, knowledge, and requirements with suppliers to improve and strengthen their quality programs. And we routinely conduct supplier visits to audit supplier performance, allowing us to identify any deficiencies, propose improvements and develop process controls to mitigate and control potential risks to our customers and consumers.

The strength of our supply chain, strengthens our food safety and quality core.

Flagstone Foods Quality Auditor

Ingredient Selection

Our high-quality ingredients are sourced exclusively from our approved suppliers, without exception. Once our Product Development team identifies the need for a new ingredient, it is then vetted through our exhaustive ingredient approval process. Our Product Development, Quality Assurance, Labeling and Regulatory teams conduct a full review of the ingredient specification, ingredient declaration, nutritional profile, facility HACCP program, allergen control programs, certifications and more.
We also conduct an in-depth risk assessment of the ingredient’s known biological, chemical, physical and economically motivated risks. High-risk ingredients require a validated biological kill-step. Documentation is routinely reviewed and updated based on new federal or local regulations, supplier ingredient updates or changes to our procedures or requirements.

It’s a pleasure to work with a company who shares the same high standards for quality ingredients and food safety.

Long-standing Pecan Supplier

Inspections

Before any ingredient enters our facility, it is thoroughly inspected for conformance to our detailed specifications. All incoming ingredients and packaging materials must comply with applicable regulations as well as our detailed specifications, including microbiological, physical and chemical criteria. Testing protocols, parameters and specified limits are established for each ingredient and packaging material to ensure food safety and quality.

We train our Quality team to look for the small, yet important details including color, taste, freshness, texture, size and more. No material can be used in manufacturing until it passes quality inspections and testing protocols.

Where pathogen testing is conducted, a hold-and-release procedure is applied until testing is complete. Any non-conforming ingredient or packaging material will be rejected, and the supplier will be required to complete our Defective Material Report (DMR) outlining corrective and preventative actions.

We treat our incoming food inspections as if we are feeding it directly to our own families.

Flagstone Foods Quality Supervisor

Roasting

Roasting nuts, legumes and seeds is both an art and a science. Skillful execution of the roasting process is essential because it transforms the raw material into a safe-to-consume, delicious, flavorful toasted product. Our roasting processes are validated on regular basis by an external Process Authority to ensure each of our processing systems meet and exceed the minimum CCP lethality requirements for biological food safety protection.

Flagstone Foods’ recipe for roasting is simple: we choose the highest quality snack nuts, legumes and seeds and match them with our expert roaster operators who perfectly roast them to exceed our customers’ food safety and sensory expectations. We take pride in saying our roaster operators have 90+ combined years of roasting experience. They know how to balance temperature, duration and moisture content to produce the highest quality roasted products. Nothing but the best roasting conditions will reveal the intrinsic potential of the raw nut, legume or seed which results in the perfected flavors our customers trust us to deliver day in, day out.

Our roasting team is dedicated to continuously improve and innovate our roasting process through new technology, training and cross-functional collaboration with our Procurement, Research and Development, Process Engineering and Quality Assurance teams.

It is a great source of pride to see our high-quality products on the shelves of the nation’s largest, premier retailers.

Flagstone Foods employee

Manufacturing

Our quality assurance workstream extends through every step of production, starting with proper set-up and cleaning verifications on our processing equipment. We confirm cleaning procedures, conduct allergen testing and micro indicator testing and verify there is no biological residue on the equipment prior to each production and packaging run.
Next, our trained and experienced operators complete a detailed checklist to verify the line is properly set up to run. This includes reviewing the process order, scanning materials to the line, testing the metal detector, x-ray, checkweigher, unit and case code dating equipment. Ingredients are inspected again to confirm conformance to specification.
Throughout the production run, our production and quality teams regularly perform line checks and product conformance tests. We use state-of-the art equipment to maintain tight component ratios on mixed nut and trail mix formulas and to reduce handling and drop-points that minimize breakage.
Finished products are evaluated using a variety of tests including moisture, weight, salt, breakage, residual oxygen, packaging integrity, code date legibility and more. We also conduct frequent sensory checks at set intervals throughout the production run.
Lastly, our management teams review each production run to ensure records are complete and accurate, checks and testing procedures were followed, and any potential problems were escalated and resolved.

Exceeding our customers’ expectations and holding their trust, and the trust of their consumers to the highest level is our #1 obligation in meeting our Food Safety and Quality Goals

Flagstone Foods employee