Steviva Ingredients recently earned its Safe Quality Food (SQF) Level 2 certification at its new headquarters to the historic Guilds Lakes area in Portland.
 
Administered by the Food Marketing Institute and recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative, SQF is a rigorous food-safety management system that focuses on the verification and validation of stringent food-safety and quality systems throughout the food supply chain.
 
"Ensuring the highest possible standards for quality control and food safety drives everything we do," said Yishu Hou, quality and document control specialist at Steviva Ingredients. "This certification reinforces that commitment to our customers as a reliable, quality supply-chain partner."
 
At 26,500 square feet, Steviva's new headquarters building is four times as large as its previous location, which the company occupied for just three years before outgrowing. Future plans include the build out of a test kitchen at its headquarters facility. Steviva is in the process of procuring equipment to enable packing and co-packing in single-serve liquid sachets and powder packets, as well as a bottle-filling line and bag fillers for co-packing. The company is also in the process of building regional distribution centers in the Midwest and East coast.
 
The Safe Quality Food (SQF) program, a division of the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), is recognized by retailers and food service providers around the world as a rigorous, credible food safety management system. It is the only major system recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) that offers third-party accredited certification for primary production, food manufacturing, distribution and agent/broker management.