This March we have been extremely busy with our usual workload, plus the added task of preparing the documentation for accreditation against the quality standards required to obtain IFS Logistics certification.

This certification is aimed at transport and storage logistics companies. It focuses on activities involving storage, distribution and transport, as well as the loading and unloading of goods.

What does the IFS Logistics certification entail?

This standard ensures that quality remains consistent throughout the food sector’s production chains. With this certification, we demonstrate full compliance with safety, quality and legal regulations regarding the transportof liquid foodstuffs.

IFS (International Food Standard) certification is based on the ISO 9001:2000 standard, which incorporates legal safety requirements, principles of good manufacturing practice and HACCP risk analysis processes within a quality management framework.

The current IFS Logistics standard is in its second version and was published in 2012. It was developed to fill the gap in the foodchainfor logisticsactivitiesnot regulatedbyanyinternationalstandardand applies to road, rail, river, sea and air transport.

The aim of obtaining certification under this standard is to ensure transparency regarding our quality management processes and to enable our clients to engage us as suppliers of liquid food transport services, havingmet allqualitystandardsthathave been previously audited externally.

The certification saves on future administrative procedures and simplifies processes in work environments where traceability and quality control are subject to constant monitoring.

This standard is important for all food companies, whether producers or distributors, and particularly for those working with perishable products or requiring delicate logistics to preserve their characteristics.

At Rios Sangiao, we continue to innovate and demonstrate the qualityof our processes to ensure and showcase excellence in everything we do.

No, we don’t have women drivers, but we would love to. Still, it’s no coincidence that 100% of the women who are part of Rios Sangiao work in administration, quality control, logistics coordination, and other roles that are always within the office environment.

We start from the fact that the transport sector has traditionally been a male‑dominated world, and the of food liquid transport is no exception.

A lot of work has been done to get to where we are today, to the point where it no longer feels strange to think that a woman is just as capable as a man of performing the job of driving any of our regular services. Fortunately, no one today would dare to think otherwise… right?

But this is not really the problem nowadays. Well, maybe a little… it’s possible that there are still a few stragglers — men or even women (OMG) — who doubt a woman’s ability to handle 44 tonnes of liquid food. In our company, that’s certainly not the case.

The real issue we see when it comes to achieving gender parity in driving positions is a structural one, and we fear it is far from being solved: social gender roles.

The job is demanding — no doubt about it — because it involves full days behind the wheel and often requires several days away from home. This applies to our transport routes within Spain and our international routes across Europe (we operate in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Netherlands).

We also have shorter routes for daily milk collection, which start and end on the same day, but the challenge there lies in the very early hours required to collect the milk so that the distribution chain doesn’t stop.

The issue we’re referring to is that it is “accepted” for a man to be away from home for days, but not so much for a woman. In the same way, family caregiving roles (whether for older adults or children) are often assigned to women “by default.” A fairer distribution of these caregiving responsibilities would lead to greater gender equality in roles like the ones we’re discussing.

We may already accept (or at least be on the right path toward accepting) the need for real equality between men and women, but unfortunately we still have a long way to go within the family sphere.

So, kudos to those couples who openly discuss how to divide household and caregiving tasks and who don’t assume that these responsibilities automatically fall on women.

Until then — and beyond, because there are still many areas where gender equality needs progress — March 8th will continue to be a day of social advocacy and celebration, a day to challenge customs that have been in place forever but are not necessarily better for it.