Feed and Grain Laboratory

Our central laboratory is based in Turku and was opened in 2008 after we combined our feed and grain laboratories. This has enabled us to offer a more efficient service and to be better prepared to meet future demands.

Feed Laboratory

The following of statutory procedures, good hygiene and production practices are the corner stones to maintaining product safety. Our internal control procedures guarantee that these processes and practices are followed. These procedures are constantly updated within the framework of the HACCP management guidelines and all parties involved in product development, raw material management, production and QA work closely together ensuring that all relevant issues are addressed.

The laboratory analyses all of Hankkija feed division's feeds, raw materials and environmental samples. Through our HACCP program we are able to ensure that our products are both safe and nutritionally optimal. For this reason samples are taken at every critical point from raw materials reception through production to delivery to the final customer.

We carry out around 25,000 analyses each year of which around half are salmonella analyses as we wish to ensure that our raw materials, products and production facilities are salmonella free. Our QA processes are very much focused on raw material analyses and all imported raw materials are checked for salmonella by both the state laboratories as well as by us. Raw materials can only be used in production after approval by both laboratories.

Grain Laboratory

When analysing grain we follow the principles laid down in the grain traders GTP. In our grain laboratory we analyse all of our contract farmer's grain samples and samples taken when grain arrives in our grain stores, the results of these analyses are used among other things to determine the price of each batch. Each year we handle around 30,000 grain samples and although some analyses are made using a NIT grain analyze most of the work is still done by hand.
An important part of our work is ensuring the quality of our own QA operations and to this end we regularly carry out various checks to ensure the integrity of our laboratory equipment and methods. We also take part in the laboratory comparisons organized by the Swedish National Food Administration and the Nordic Association of Agricultural Scientists (NFU).

Quality Systems

The Inspecta Group which is the leading provider of inspection, testing and certification services in the Nordic area has certified the company's operations and given us the following certificates, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001, these certificates require that the quality, environmental, health and safety levels within our operations are in line with the approved standards. In addition our Progut® production is also covered by GMP.