Quality Standards
The Gorton's Way is our guiding philosophy about the right way to do business, and about always providing our consumers with the safest and best quality products. One important aspect of this philosophy is to provide competitively superior products that surpass our consumers' expectations. A strong Quality Assurance program is at the heart of achieving this goal.
The key factor in the success of our QA department is our people. We have highly trained technicians, experts in seafood and QA, and even PhD's in food technology in the department that deeply care about providing the best quality products possible.
The Quality assurance staff has quite a bit of experience in the seafood quality area. Gorton's has been in business since 1849, and the QA management staff combined has almost as much experience - more than 105 years!
We build quality and safety into our products from the very beginning, working closely with Research & Development at our specially designed Technical Innovation Center. Within this center we have large R&D kitchens, a raw material inspection lab, and a progressive food safety testing laboratory. But Gorton's has an extensive quality assurance program that stretches way beyond the doors of the center. Our raw material experts travel worldwide to train our seafood suppliers according to Gorton's quality and safety specifications. We create and manage comprehensive quality assurance programs that ensure both superior quality and safety for our consumers.
Gorton's quality standards are more stringent that the government's voluntary USDC Seafood Inspection Program. While this government program requires 10 quality checkpoints, we require more than 50. We don't know if other seafood companies follow such firm guidelines, but Gorton's has always led the industry in food quality and safety. As a matter of fact, one of our favorite stories around here is about a time when we rejected yet another shipment of fish from the same supplier. They told us we were too strict with quality and that our standards were too high, and that they could walk away and sell the same fish to one of our competitors in no time. But as that supplier learned, we don't care what other companies do. If you want to do business with Gorton's, you have to do the right thing, and we won't accept any fish that doesn't meet our high standards.
We also follow the constantly changing issues surrounding illegal antibiotics and chemicals added to food. This is not acceptable to Gorton's, and we monitor our ingredients and raw materials for these illegal contaminants. In the fall of 2006 we implemented screening methods for several contaminants for aquaculture products. Safety and quality is always QA's top priority.
You can be assured that your friends at Gorton's are always working to give the best seafood to our consumers, and we will continue to challenge ourselves in order to provide the safest and most superior quality products.
Gorton's Product Recall - March 17, 2008
In late February, Gorton's voluntarily recalled some 11.4 oz. packages of its 6 Crispy Battered Fish Fillets. The recall was based upon one isolated report of pills found in one package in Pennsylvania, with no illness involved. The Food & Drug Administration then initiated an investigation into how the substance could have gotten into the fillets.
We are pleased to inform you that the Food & Drug Administration has completed its investigation, concluding that this was an isolated incident of product tampering that occurred in this consumer's household, after the product was purchased. The FDA's investigation is now closed.
Gorton's is very proud of its tradition of providing high quality, safe, and great tasting products. As Gorton's was not involved at all in this incident, we are pleased to tell you that there is now no need to dispose of, or return, any Gorton's products you may have in your freezer. We hope that you will continue to use and enjoy Gorton's fine products, and that this investigation has reassured you of Gorton's high quality and safety.