Supplier certificate tracking for pet food manufacturers
Certly tracks supplier certificates for pet food manufacturers: a list of your suppliers, the allergen declarations, certificates of analysis and audit certificates each one owes you, and what state every one of those documents is in today. It is built for the QA manager at a single plant whose renderers, premix houses and co-manufacturers all renew on their own cycle, and whose current system is
How pet food plants track supplier certificates today
In most mid-market pet food plants the approved supplier file lives in three places at once. A spreadsheet holds a row per supplier and a column per document. A shared drive holds the PDFs, filed by whoever saved them last. The QA manager holds the rest: which renderer takes weeks to answer, which premix house answers the same day, and which co-manufacturer sends the certificate for the wrong site. That picture is an illustrative composite of how the job tends to be organised rather than an account of any one plant, but the shape of it is usually familiar.
That arrangement holds up until the week before an audit, and an unannounced visit removes the week.
Why a pet food supplier base is harder to hold in a spreadsheet
- The suppliers are not one kind of business. Renderers and animal protein suppliers, grain and fat suppliers, vitamin and mineral premix houses, palatant and additive suppliers, packaging, and co-manufacturers running your recipe on their line. Each owes you a different set of documents, so the spreadsheet grows columns that are blank for most rows, and a blank cell reads the same whether the document is not required or simply never arrived.
- Several schemes sit side by side. One supplier is certified to BRCGS, the next to FSSC 22000, the next to SQF, and some are audited against a human food standard while your own certificate is the animal food one. What you need on file is whichever certificate they actually hold, with whatever date is actually printed on it.
- Allergen declarations move. A reformulation, a new line, a shared site with human food production, and the declaration you filed last year no longer describes what is arriving on the pallet.
- Renewal dates cluster where you did not choose them. Certification bodies renew on their own cycle, not yours, so several suppliers can lapse in the same fortnight of a busy production month.
The failure mode is small and specific. A supplier's audit certificate expired weeks ago, nobody opened that folder, and the auditor opens it first. That is a document control finding, and closing it out costs corrective action paperwork, the time of the person who had the least of it, and sometimes a re-audit fee.
The workflow Certly is built around
- List the suppliers and say what each one owes you
Add each supplier with its contact details and tick the certificate types you require from it: allergen declaration, certificate of analysis, audit certificate. A renderer and a packaging supplier can carry different requirements, so a requirement you never set never shows up as a gap, and a requirement you did set never quietly disappears.
- Set how early you want to be warned
Expiry tracking runs on configurable thresholds at 90, 60 and 30 days before the date on the document. Ninety days is often the threshold that matters, because a supplier who needs a certification body to issue something before they can send it to you cannot move faster than that body does, and in a pet food supply base that is a common pattern.
- Get the documents in
Your QA team can upload a certificate directly and tie it to the supplier and the certificate type. Suppliers can also upload their own without an account, through a single-use, expiring link sent by email, and automated chase sequences carry that link to the contact as a certificate approaches expiry or lapses, with every send logged.
- Work from the status board, not the folder tree
One screen shows every supplier and every required certificate as current, expiring soon, expired or missing. Missing is a state the board names out loud, which is the state a spreadsheet's empty cell hides.
- Export the board before the auditor sits down
The dashboard exports as a PDF for auditor review, so the evidence you hand over is the same view you have been working from all year rather than a document assembled the night before.
The three certificate types, per supplier
| Certificate type | Who it usually comes from in a pet food plant | What Certly holds against it |
|---|---|---|
| Allergen declaration | Ingredient suppliers, premix houses, co-manufacturers sharing lines or sites | The uploaded document, its issue and expiry dates, and a status of current, expiring soon, expired or missing |
| Certificate of analysis | Protein, fat, grain and additive suppliers who issue a CoA with a validity period | The uploaded document, its dates, and the same four-state status on the board and in the PDF |
| Audit certificate | Suppliers certified to a third party scheme, renewed on the certification body's cycle | The uploaded certificate, the expiry printed on it, and alerts at your chosen thresholds before that date |
What that is worth in a pet food plant
Requirements set per supplier, not per column
A packaging supplier is not asked for a CoA and a renderer is not let off an audit certificate. The required certificate types are part of the supplier record, so the gap list is the real gap list.
Ninety days of warning on the slow ones
The suppliers who need their certification body to act before they can send you anything are commonly the ones who lapse. A 90 day threshold starts that conversation while there is still room for it, and 60 and 30 day thresholds follow.
Missing reads differently from current
A certificate you have never received shows as missing rather than as an empty cell someone will read as fine. It is the state most likely to become a finding, so the board names it.
One screen for the whole approved supplier base
Current, expiring soon, expired and missing across every supplier and every required type, so the Monday question of what needs chasing this week takes a minute rather than an afternoon in a folder tree.
Something to hand an auditor
The PDF export of the status board gives the auditor the same view your team works from, with the documents behind it held against the supplier and the type they belong to.
Your plant's data stays your plant's
Certly is scoped to a single plant, with plant-scoped isolation applied on every query, so one site's supplier list and certificates are not visible from another account.
What Certly does not do, said plainly
A tracking tool that oversells itself is worse than a spreadsheet, because you stop checking it.
Certly tracks certificates and reminds you about them. It does not verify that a certificate is authentic, it does not read the document to confirm the scope or the scheme is the right one, and it does not guarantee regulatory or scheme compliance. That statement sits permanently on the dashboard and on the PDF export, so nobody in the room is under a different impression. Judging whether a supplier's certificate is the correct certificate remains the QA team's call.
It is also not a lot-by-lot CoA system. If your receiving process takes a certificate of analysis with every delivery and checks it against a specification, that is a different job with a different rhythm. Certly tracks the certificate types you have defined against a supplier, each with an issue date and an expiry date, which is the document set an auditor asks for when they open your approved supplier file.
And it is scoped to one plant. A group running several sites is a different shape of account, and the Multi-site plan is the one written for it.
For the mechanics of expiry tracking in general, including what the spreadsheet and calendar approaches actually cost you, the guide on tracking expiry dates compares the methods honestly, and the QA manager page covers the day to day use of the status board.
Questions
Does Certly track certificates of analysis for every lot?
No. Certly holds a certificate of analysis as one of the certificate types a supplier owes you, with its issue and expiry dates, and tracks its status. Lot-by-lot CoA checking at goods-in is a separate process and Certly is not built for it.
Which certificate types can I require from a pet food supplier?
Allergen declaration, certificate of analysis and audit certificate. You choose which of them each supplier owes you when you add that supplier, so a premix house and a packaging supplier can carry different requirements.
How far ahead does it warn me about an expiry?
Alert thresholds are configurable at 90, 60 and 30 days before the expiry date on the document, computed by a scheduled job. The 90 day point is usually the one that matters for suppliers waiting on a certification body.
What do I give the auditor?
A PDF export of the audit-ready dashboard, showing each supplier, each required certificate type and its status as current, expiring soon, expired or missing. The export carries the same statement as the dashboard: Certly tracks and reminds, it does not verify authenticity or guarantee compliance.
Does Certly check that a supplier's certificate is genuine or covers the right scope?
No. It stores the document you or the supplier uploads, tracks the dates on it, and tells you when it is close to expiry or past it. Reading the certificate and deciding whether it is the right certificate stays with your QA team.
We run two pet food sites. Does that work?
Certly is single-site in scope, with each plant's data isolated on every query. Groups and consultants are covered by the Multi-site plan at $10,788 a year, for up to 30 sites under one agreement with site switching from one sign-in.
How do suppliers send documents in?
Your QA team can upload a certificate directly against a supplier and type, and suppliers can upload their own without creating an account, through a single-use link that expires, sent to their contact address.
Can I start now?
Not yet. Certly is at the waitlist stage, so the way in today is to leave your email and be told when a plant can sign up and begin the 14 day free trial.