More and more people are concerned about maintaining a balanced and quality diet, aware of how important it is for their health and well-being. At Importaco we are totally committed to this objective and, for this reason, we have created a 360° quality model to offer consumers safe, nutritious and healthy products.

Through the neuroscience studies we carry out, we are able to understand the consumer’s perpection of our products in order to meet, in an almost personalized way, their consumer needs. In turn, we contribute to improving people’s well-being by understanding mental health and cognition. These processes are developed with transparency and from a multidisciplinary perspective, and involve different social actors with the aim of guaranteeing the highest standards of quality and food safety.

Amparo Devesa is the Director of Research and Quality at Importaco

How we do the implement this 360° quality model? We have developed a multidisciplinary work style that allows us to manage quality from four dimensions: corrective, preventive, predictive and exploratory. This allows us to manage quality requirements globally, and to guarantee their integration in all phases of the value chain.

• Corrective quality: This is focused on quality control and the implementation of improvements identified through customers service processes. Through this channel, we know what the main demands of consumers are. This, together with continuous audits, makes us highly qualified to react to any food safety incident that may arise, including allergen control. We have first class technology in our facilities that allows us to analyze each product in 150 different parameters, 25% of which are related to food safety.
• Preventive quality: Through the agricultural integration project, we work on the traceability of the product from the field, betting on sustainable practices that respect the environment. We aim to obtain the highest quality in our products by detecting emerging risks and eliminating allergens. In fact, we make strict controls to ensure that the equipment used during the manufacturing process has not been previously used for the elaboration of products that may cause allergies or any type of intolerance.
• Exploratory quality: At Importaco we research new technologies to solve quality-related challenges. We collaborate with technology hubs and startups to develop open innovation projects, we carry out cross-sector analysis in order to test emerging technologies with the capacity to envolve, and technologies that are consolidated in other sectors. This is another avenue we explore to detect allergens in products.
• Predictive quality: Through Big Data methodologies in our crops, production sites, suppliers and factories, we can define the behavior of our products. This allows us to reduce deviations and generate algorithms with which we improve product prediction through multivariate data analysis, fundamental to avoid the presence of allergens. Anual process reports, trend analysis of critical quality characteristics and continuous monitoring systems through quality cells guide us to ensure maximun traceability and food safety.

We work to eliminate food allergens in our products

Each of these four dimensions that make up the 360° Quality Model is constantly and recurrently audited to obtain the best results. Product traceability, from the field until it reaches the consumer, is meticulous and efficient.

The health and well-being of consumers are the main objective of importaco

Allergen controls are carried out throughout the harvesting, storage and transportation process to avoid cross-contamination. In addition, all our factories are specialized in the raw materials they work with. This allows us to identify allergens through the application of product control technologies in the machinery.

The health and well-being of consumers is our main objective and that is why we work to improve processes and safety controls in all our facilities and production centers.