tails.com quality policy
At tails.com, our purpose is to improve the lives of dogs and their owners with the vision of changing the world of pet food for good.
Quality and safety for our customers and pets is at the heart of what we do and it is of the highest priority to us.
We benchmark ourselves against the highest industry standards for pet food quality and food safety.
We have a Food and Quality Policy that looks at all aspects of food safety, legality, nutritional suitability as well as our customers' evolving needs.
We regularly review our processes to ensure they’re as good as they can be.
We strive to:
- Make sure our food is safe; adhering to safety regulations such as those set by DEFRA in the UK and the NVWA in the Netherlands
- Fulfil our promises on nutritional benefits and palatability.
- Provide the right amount of the right food to every customer we serve
- Ensure our customers’ supply of food is uninterrupted and always on time
- Continuously review to ensure we meet the highest standards
Our organisation
Since 2014, the team at tails.com has been helping people give their dogs advanced personalised nutrition to support long, happy and healthy lives.
For our tails.com subscription, we do this through tailor-made kibble blends to meet the nutritional needs of each pet based on breed, age, lifestyle and other factors. With our retail range, we do this through kibble recipes tailored to groups of dogs and a personalised portion guide and scoop for each customer.
A wide range of complementary treats and non-food products are also available on subscription, or can be bought via our online shop. We also offer complete and complementary products through a small number of trusted retail partners.
We use third party manufacturers to produce our food components, complementary items, and packaging. We blend individually customised food orders in our own manufacturing operations, based across two sites in the UK and one site in the Netherlands. We use third party distributors to deliver to our customers in the UK and Europe.
Due diligence, assessing and managing risk
Our suppliers
We assess and approve all our suppliers before we onboard them to ensure their food safety and quality systems meet our high expectations. All must adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct. Once approved we assess our suppliers’ performance regularly, on a frequency determined by our risk assessment, but at a minimum once per year.
Our products
As part of our new product development process, we risk assess all food, non-food and packaging materials before we receive these for the first time.
We make sure that:
- Quality control checks against our specifications are carried out on all materials at the first point of entry to our operation
- Food materials are microbiologically and nutritionally monitored to confirm they comply with our product specifications
- We carry out internal testing regularly, and also send samples for independent laboratory testing at predetermined frequency
- We store our products carefully
- We raise non-conformance reports when products fail our internal or external testing, and work collaboratively with our suppliers to drive the necessary quality improvements
- We have a traceability process to track everything in our value chain in a timely manner
- We minimise product waste and dispose of it carefully and responsibly
- We have effective procedures and perform checks at different stages of the value chain to make sure we maintain our standards
Our HACCP
We have identified risks in our value chain, and implemented appropriate control measures to mitigate these risks, through our Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.
We review the HACCP annually or whenever a major change occurs to our process, product, suppliers or our people, or following the emergence of a new food fraudulent risk, if we have a product recall, or following repetitive customer complaints.
We also conduct regular audits, where we check our food safety system effectiveness and compliance.
Our processes
Our Quality Management System (QMS) supports the HACCP food safety system and describes the standards and procedures governing our manufacturing operations in order to maintain a food manufacturing environment and products that are hygienic and safe, now and as we grow.
The QMS lays out processes to maintain, amongst other things, housekeeping and hygiene, documentation control, internal auditing, calibration, maintenance, site security, our standards, pest control, staff training, and product testing.
Our Quality and Food Safety systems are continuously reviewed and kept up to date to guarantee all reasonable steps are taken to minimise the risk of physical, chemical and biological cross contamination. We maintain a high level of hygiene in the factories to make sure we have a safe and clean working environment. We also make sure that our machinery and equipment is maintained, inspected and calibrated to deliver each customer’s order accurately and efficiently.
We use internal and independent audits of our processes, systems and tools to validate our approach, check our performance is on track, and to find ways to improve what we do.
Governance
tails.com has established a Materiality Committee. This consists of senior leadership across the organisation to ensure we are clear on the positive and negative impacts of our business on our material stakeholders. The Materiality Committee is tasked with ensuring that we have policies to enhance our positive impact and reduce negative areas, that plans are in place to improve our performance over time, and that these plans are carried out. This includes amongst other areas, our policies for food safety and quality. Our Materiality Committee will report on all our impact areas to our Investor Board at least once per year.
Training and communication
All employees regardless of their position or role have a part to play in upholding our food safety and quality expectations. This policy is displayed in our factories and on our website so our Quality and Food safety culture is visible to everyone.
We train all our production staff so they are aware of our systems, standards and procedures to ensure food safety. This training includes hygiene and health rules, protective equipment, and how to spot and report issues. All visitors and contractors to our factory sites must undergo an induction to ensure they understand and comply with our requirements.
Measuring performance and progress
To maintain effective quality and food safety systems, we measure and trend Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), for example Customer Complaints and Non-Conformance Reports, to understand whether we’re performing to our standards, and where there are opportunities to improve.
We regularly review and communicate our KPIs with our team and our suppliers. This is to allow us to work together to perform better and improve product quality.
We set ourselves and our suppliers targets, which get progressively more stringent over time, to drive process improvements and to understand our impact on the value chain and our customers.
Reporting issues
Our customers can contact our customer experience team via phone, email, social media or chat to inform us of any issues.
Our integrated non-conformance report system and communication channels allows our internal team to record issues, so they can be acted upon, trended and reported.
If a team member, visitor or contractor has any concerns about any issues associated with tails.com, we have an open culture of feedback and we encourage all to share with their site contact or line manager. They can also report issues by contacting our Head of Quality, or Operations Director, in confidence. We also have a confidential non-compliance reporting system, SpeakUp, where any team member can raise concerns and these will be independently investigated.
Endorsement
Ultimate responsibility for ensuring we uphold our commitments to quality and food safety rests with our leadership team. This policy has been approved by our CEO.
James Davidson
CEO, Director and Co-founder