3.7. Quality assurance

The good reputation based on quality, home and international recognition, first-class products – among these the PICK salami as a symbol of Hungaricums, furthermore many of up-to-date products – necessitate the co-ordination of facilities, modern knowledge, experience and preparedness.
The right objectives and their fulfillment are supported by the commitment and effort of managers and workers, the legal and ethical functioning of the Company as well as by TQM results, ISO 9001:2000 quality management system and also the foodstuff safety controlling system based on the internationally certified HACCP system, too. All these enable the company to preserve the food industrial leading role at home, the good reputation in Europe and in the five continents hereafter. The successes up till now inspire the Pick to make further efforts and maintain a continuous strive for learning and developing.
Consumers require more and more consciously – and with good reason- that only those raw and processed products could be marketed which have maximum safety beyond the expected and accustomed sensory and nutritional value. The HACCP method (a regulation for ensuring food safety) is more and more widely used as a tool for reaching the above requirement.
The producer and trader are equally responsible for safety. The food processor has to ensure that the products, produced by him, are not harmful for health, they are safe and have uniform quality. The trader has to ensure that the products, the food, handled by him, maintain their safety and quality properties during the trading process. These expectations are summarized in laws and regulations which are in harmony with the EU prescriptions at the time of joining to the union implicitly. One of the biggest challenges for the producer and trader is to monitor and abide the domestic laws and orders controlling food processing and trading. These laws prescribe the steps of monitoring from the farm to the fork and the demonstration of the food safety. The individual identification of live animals and the traceability of the carcasses and meat parts deriving from them are very important in this chain.
Pick Szeged Rt. pays special attention to traceability, the adjoining veterinary control and safe slaughtering process operations. These altogether ensure the prevention of animal diseases, the healthy condition of the animals slaughtered by us, safety and a guaranteed quality of pork carcasses meat parts and meat products. Pick Szeged Rt. has taken part in the project for elaborating the national labelling and filing system of pigs. Our corporation has established a computerized system for registration of the ENAR code and data of owners of the animals to be slaughtered, so this way the identification and traceability could be comprehensive from the breeder to the slaughtered carcass/meat parts25.
Beyond the identifiability and traceability of living pigs there is a strict veterinary and food hygiene control at Pick, involving the individual investigation of each pig to be slaughtered and the veterinary inspection of carcasses on the slaughtering line. The veterinary inspection of each pig and the applied identification system ensure that PICK Szeged Rt. delivers pork carcasses and meat parts deriving only from pigs which are identifiable and unconditionally suitable for human consumption.
The inner regulation of the Company is in harmony with this authority control. It carries out a process control within the framework of a quality control system focusing on hygiene, food safety and quality in the course of the slaughtering process and the meat product processing. Our quality assurance system and food safety control are regularly audited by the SGS Hungary. These audits testify of our dedication to quality hence Pick Szeged Rt. does not only declare its commitment to food safety and quality but it is audited by an independent organization. We apply a monitoring and supervisory control over the entire processing procedure which demonstrates the hygienic and safe operation objectively, fulfilling not only the EU but the USDA FSIS requirements as well.

3.8. Food safety

The main effort is to develop such realization of the mission and strategy of PICK SZEGED Co. which is based on first-class products and the satisfaction of purchasers and consumers, which ensures the equilibrium among the interests of the owners, co-workers, society and environment, and which blends century-old traditions with modern manufacturing culture. 26
To this end, the company develops his products and technology, alimentary and gastronomical knowledge, and they strengthen his participation on the market, represent the country on the international market and in many organizations, sponsor the institutions of knowledge, health and culture.
The aim of the quality policy is to assure the excellence of products, the safety of food hygiene, the efficiency and creative atmosphere at the workplace, these form the pillars of short- and middle-term programs. The steadily revised and renewed objectives determine the continuous measures and acts carried out in favour of the development of manufacturing and commercial cultures.

3.9. Recent developments

To hold the market leader position, it’s very important, to develop day to day. The Pick, as a modern european company research the claim of costumers continually. After several years Hungarian customers also realized the important of healthy feeding. The Pick follows these claims, and center of development is the healthy. Consumers require more and more consciously – and with good reason- that only those raw and processed products could be marketed which have maximum safety beyond the expected and accustomed sensory and nutritional value.
The HACCP method (a regulation for ensuring food safety) is more and more widely used as a tool for reaching the above requirement. Many new products testify persistent expansion. The most famous is the Hungarian Mangalitze pig. This type of pigs has a very healthy meet. The measures shows, that the cholesterol contain of this meat is very low. The Pick developed more products of this type.

3.10. The leader of the chain

Although the chain of salami processing comprises more than seven steps, the leader of this chain is the company. We can say, that only the piggeries, so the farmers are outside of this chain. Almost the 90% concentrated in the company. This case takes much more organized, controlled, and amenable the processing flow. The company controls the quality of meet at the beginning, but the rest of the chain is happening in the company.

3.11. SWOT analysis

Source: Own study

3.12. Bottlenecks

However the Pick has market leader position in the country, have to know the most dangerous bottlenecks. Example competitors in the Hungarian meat and salami market. A new competitor, which can offer something new, that the Hungarian customers would like to buy, but the supply is not available. The big size of company could be advantage, and also disadvantage. The bargaining position of employers is much bigger, than in middle, and small size enterprises.
Now days the company has a very hard, and stabile position in the Hungarian market. Good relationship with the suppliers, and farmers, good working retail network, etc. These circumstances could be also dangerous, because the company could became too confident in the business policy.