Food safety management standards and certification schemes (Part 1)

I am dedicating this and some other posts to the topic of food safety management, and I´m starting by referring to the standards and certification schemes that are most recognized worldwide. On the issue of food safety management systems, the standardization scheme has not been as clear as in the case of quality system management, that is, that its requirements could be found in a single standard, as it is with the ISO 9001.

Due to the manner, but mainly to the timely in which the normative programs of food safety were developed, various standardization and certification/accreditation schemes were established. They are all based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points scheme, but there are some differences in their Prerequisite Programs as well as some of their supplemental elements.

- "HACCP": The fundamental regulatory scheme for food safety is the so-called "Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points" or HACCP. The interest of the HACCP system for managing food safety grows from two major developments.

The first impulse towards the development of the HACCP model, as in quality management systems, was associated with the quality management theories developed by Deming, Juran and other concept developers and which are widely considered as a relevant factor to transform the quality of Japanese products in the 1950s and 1960s.

The second major impact was the development of the HACCP concept itself. This concept was guided in the sixties by the Pillsbury Company, in conjunction with the United States Army and the U.S. National Air and Space Administration (NASA), as a collaborative development for the production of safe food for the space program.

This company introduced and adopted the HACCP as the system that could provide the greatest safety, while reducing dependence on inspections and final tests on the product. Pillsbury presented the concept of HACCP publicly at a food protection conference in 1971.

The use of HACCP principles in the promulgation of regulations for low acid canned food was completed in 1974 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the early 1980s, the HACCP approach was adopted by other large companies.

The National Academy of Sciences of the United States recommended in 1985 that the HACCP approach be adopted in food processing establishments to ensure food safety.

Recognizing the importance of HACCP for food control, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, in a session held in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 28 to July 7, 1993, adopted the Guidelines for the application of the Hazard Analysis Critical System Control (HACCP).

The document “International Code of Recommended Practice - General Principles of Food Hygiene Rev 3 (1997)” was adopted by this Commission in a session held in June 1997. The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system and the guidelines for its application were included as its Annex.

Subsequently, this scheme of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points has been used by the health authorities of most countries, in a regulatory manner, to ensure safety in some food production sectors, and protect its population.

The HACCP System has, so far, become a synonym for food safety. HACCP is a recognized global, systematic and preventive approach that covers biological, chemical and physical hazards, through anticipation and prevention, rather than inspection and final testing.

This system identifies specific hazards and their measurement for their control, as recognized by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, to ensure food safety. It is a tool for assessing hazards and establishing control systems that focus on prevention, rather than relying primarily on inspection and testing of the finished product.

It is considered the best approach that an organization can have within the food chain to identify, prevent, eliminate or reduce to an acceptable level the hazards of contamination (adulteration) of the food it supplies, and this could be achieved by establishing good manufacturing practices programs (GMPs), Operational sanitation programs (OSPs), both types of programs identified as prerequisites, in order to prepare an “Analysis of contamination (adulteration) hazards”, in order to identify the specific hazards for that product and that process, and establish its critical control points within the food process. With this information, the organization must establish a "HAACP Plan" or "Hazard control Plan", which defines the control activities and their monitoring of each contamination hazard, to ensure that no hazard is out of control within each lot of food that it processes, or where appropriate takes measures to ensure, either that no food with the presence of any uncontrolled contamination (adulteration) hazard is distributed to the market, or if this is not possible, to recall that product from the market and avoid its consumption .

It is a very logical, complete, and although complex, valuable and necessary scheme to avoid injury, damage or even the death of consumers of these foods, and that has been used successfully throughout the world for decades.

Within the focus of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), prior to the application of HACCP to any sector of the food chain, that sector should be operating in accordance with the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, the appropriate Codex Codes of Practice and appropriate food safety legislation. Top management commitment is necessary for the implementation of an effective HACCP system. During hazard identification, assessment, and subsequent operations in the design and application of HACCP systems, the impact of raw materials, ingredients, food manufacturing practices, the role of manufacturing processes in controlling hazards, likely end-use of the product, categories of consumers of concern, and epidemiological evidence regarding food safety.

The intent of the HACCP system is to focus control on CCPs. The redesign of the operation should be considered if a hazard to be controlled is identified but no critical control points (CCP) are found.

The HACCP must be applied to each specific operation separately. The CCPs identified in any example given in any Codex Code of Hygienic Practice may not be the only ones identified for a specific application or could be of another nature.

The HACCP application should be reviewed and any necessary changes should be made when any modification is made to the product, process or any step.

In relation to food safety management systems, we find various standards, or normative documents, such this “HACCP” or “Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points”, which, as we have already seen, was the first regulatory document on the subject and has remained as the technological base of the others.

Another factor that has had a major impact on the standardization, certification and accreditation schemes for food safety management systems has been the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), which was created in 2000 to help address this problem global. It is a landmark initiative of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a global network of the food industry. Its goal is to increase consumer confidence in the food they buy, regardless of where they come from, or where in the world they live, by improving food safety management practices.

It is an organization that brings together retailers and manufacturers of consumer goods globally to collaborate, along with other key stakeholders, to ensure consumer confidence and drive positive change, including greater efficiency. This organization considers that it is in a unique position to drive positive change and efficiency in the consumer goods industry and throughout the world, for the benefit of people and the planet, as well as their businesses, ensuring better lives through better business.

The Global Food Security Initiative aims to improve food safety and business efficiency. GFSI's work in benchmarking and harmonization encourages mutual acceptance of the Certification Programs recognized by GFSI throughout the industry and allows a simplified approach "once certified, recognized everywhere". This reduces the inefficiencies of duplicating audits and helps reduce trade barriers.

GFSI benchmarking requirements are created through expert consensus; they form a shared and widely accepted understanding of what constitutes a robust food safety certification program.

The standardization and certification schemes for food safety management systems, recognized by the GFSI, will be described in the following entries.

 

Author:

Ernesto Palomares Hilton