A systems approach to food safety

JohnsonDiversey Consulting recently conducted an awareness seminar on ISO 22000:2005 in conjunction with the Food Control and Dubai Accreditation Departments of Dubai Municipality and the Emirates Authority for Standardisation & Metrology.

Yaser Nazir, a senior consultant with JohnsonDiversey Consulting, took 150 participants through the implementation steps of the recently-introduced ISO standard.

Last month, I summarised Nazir's thoughts on the management's role in a food safety management system and this month I will continue with a synopsis of the steps required to implement a systems approach to food safety, exclusively for Caterer readers.

Everyday oversight

It is important to note that the day-to-day management of food safety is the responsibility of the food safety team leader.

It is the responsibility of this individual to mange the rest of the food safety team, ensuring that everyone has the relevant training, and reports to the top management on the effectiveness of the food safety management system (FSMS).

The team is responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of the FSMS. These responsibilities include reviewing and assessing all internal communications that can affect food safety, such as sending out details about the development of new products and highlighting any changes in specifications, processes, packaging materials, or regulatory requirements.

They are also responsible for increasing awareness about food safety issues and dealing with enquiries from customers or other external individuals.

In addition, the team is responsible for planning and implementing a process by which to validate control measures, and verify and improve the food safety management system.

Being systematic

ISO 22000 takes a systems approach to the development of a FSMS, which links the prerequisite programmes and the HACCP plan into one system. In addition, a number of the optional requirements in HACCP become mandatory under the ISO approach.

ISO 22000 comprises two main types of programme:

• Prerequisite programmes (PRPs) that address infrastructure and the maintenance of the FSMS.

• Operational PRPs that are used to control potential food safety hazards. These are similar to the HACCP critical control points (CCP), and cover things such as the receiving temperature of raw meat at a processing plant.

The ISO standard recognises that the food safety management system may or may not have a HACCP critical control point. As a result, hazard identification and hazard analysis is conducted on all products.

As part of this process, the food safety team must determine if the hazards will be controlled through the operational PRPs or through the HACCP plan.

Choose carefully

Selection of the appropriate control system is dependent on a number of factors, includng the severity of the adverse health effect and the likelihood of the hazard occurring.

This second factor in turn depends on the specific type of product, the effectiveness of the PRP programmes, the production method, the expected conditions during storage and transportation, and the additional processing steps that occur before the consumption of the food.

In conclusion, ISO 22000 provides a number of advantages to foodservice operations that wish to improve their FSMS.

The standard ensures that the FSMS uses a systems approach and, in addition, the standard is fully compatible with an ISO 9001-based quality management system.

This allows food outlets to benchmark the best industry practices and develop systems that ensure they remain competitive in the marketplace.

Abdul Rashid is the regional director for the GCC, Middle East and Africa at JohnsonDiversey Consulting.

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