Shell first to gain new ISO food safety cert

London - Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd has become the first company to receive certification to ISO 21469: Safety of machinery - Lubricants with Incidental Product Contact -- Hygiene requirements, according to NSF, which claims to be the only company offering American National Standards Institute-accredited ISO 21469 certification.

The international standard applies to lubricants intended for use in food production, as well as cosmetic, pharmaceutical and animal feed industries. It specifies the hygiene requirements for the formulation, manufacture, use and handling of lubricants, which can come into contact with products during manufacturing or processing.

“Certification to ISO 21469 provides our customers with real proof that we take food safety seriously,” said Eduard Stempfel, Shell Lubricants' food sector product application specialist. “From a food producer’s point of view, NSF Nonfood Compounds Registration is a great starting point. However, ISO 21469 Certification takes registration a step further by integrating Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and hygiene requirements to ensure that the risk of contamination is further minimized.”

Stempfel added that without NSF registration, companies often cannot be accepted as food grade by the food manufacturers quality assurance department, and "I believe, in the near future, it will be the same for this ISO standard as regulations and traceability demands become more stringent.”

According to Sarah Krol, business unit manager for NSF’s Nonfood Compounds Registration Program, the focus of the food industry has shifted to proactively minimise sources of food contamination during production. ISO 21469 provides an internationally accepted hygiene and safety standard for lubricants that bridges multiple processing industries. More and more companies will turn to certified lubricants as the logical alternative for managing the critical control points identified during the hazard analysis of their production processes.”


To receive ISO 21469 Certification, Shell successfully passed a series of requirements, including:

• Formulation/label review - ensures that certified products are formulated with approved ingredients and that product labels are true and accurate
• Risk assessment - ensures that the manufacturer has identified and evaluated the relevant hazards associated with the manufacture and use of the certified product
• Production facility audits - confirm that all certification requirements are met and that quality assurance and quality control procedures are followed.
• Annual testing - sampling and retesting are conducted on an ongoing basis to verify the integrity of the product composition