Article
11 February 2007
Food safety has been of concern to humankind since the dawn of history, and many of the problems encountered in our food supply go back to the earliest recorded years. Many rules and recommendations advocated in religious or historical texts are evidence of the concern to protect people against food-borne diseases and food adulteration.
However, in recent decades this concern has grown and food-borne diseases remain one of the most widespread public health problems in the contemporary world, and an important cause of reduced economic productivity, despite progress in food science and technologies. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from communicable and non-communicable diseases caused by contaminated food and water.
In the United States around 30% of the population suffers every year from food-borne diseases. After eating contaminated food, people can develop anything from a short, mild illness, often mistakenly referred to as "food poisoning," to life-threatening disease.
Food safety is related to the presence of microbiological, physical or chemical hazards in food that can harm consumers. As food safety hazards may be introduced at any stage of the food chain, adequate control throughout the food chain is essential. Therefore, a combined effort of all parties through the food chain is required.
Most countries have their own food safety regulations and standards; even within countries, there is little uniformity to food safety codes. All of these standards are similar but slightly different. As a result, there was an international effort to harmonize the standards into a single universal standard. In 2005 the International Organisation for Standardisation, which is a non-governmental standard-setting body composed of representatives from 158 national members, published the ISO 22000 standard which defines a state-of-the-art food safety management system.
ISO 22000 may apply to all types of organizations within the food chain ranging from feed producers, primary producers through food manufacturers, transport and storage operators and subcontractors to retail and food service outlets– together with inter-related organizations such as producers of equipment, packaging material, cleaning agents, additives and ingredients.
Communication along the food chain is essential to ensure that all relevant food safety hazards, including hazards that may be associated with the type of process and facilities used, are identified and adequately controlled at each step within the food chain. This implies communication between organizations both upstream and downstream in the food chain. Communication with customers and supplies about identified hazards and control measures will assist in clarifying customer and supplier requirements.
ISO 22000 specifies requirements for a food safety management system in the food chain where an organization:
- Needs to demonstrate its ability to control food safety hazards in order to consistently provide safe end products that meet both the requirements agreed with the customer and those of applicable food safety regulations, and
- Aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective control of food safety hazards, including processes for updating the system.
The new standard integrates the prerequisite programmes, which enhance operational conditions, and a detailed HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) plan. Hazard analysis is the key to an effective food safety management system, since conducting a hazard analysis assists in organizing the knowledge required to establish an effective combination of control measures. ISO 22000 requires that all hazards that may be reasonably expected to occur in the food chain, including hazards that may be associated with the type of process and facilities used, are identified and assessed. Thus it provides the means to determine and document why certain identified hazards need to be controlled by a particular organization and why others need not.
The benefits for organisations implementing the ISO 22000 standard include among others the following:
- Allows organization within the food chain to demonstrate their commitment to food safety.
- A systematic and proactive approach to identification of all known food safety hazards and development and implementation of control measures.
- Increased due diligence.
- Provides potential for harmonization of national standards.
- Allow small and/or less developed organization to implement an externally developed system.
- Continuous improvement of an organization’s food safety management system.
- System approach, rather than product approach.
- Resource optimization – internally and along the food chain.
- Dynamic communication on food safety issues with suppliers, customers,
regulators and other interested parties.
ISO 22000 can be applied independently of other management system standards or integrated with existing management system requirements, such as the ISO 9001:2000, with or without independent (third party) certification of conformity.
This standard can be considered as a business management tool that links food safety to business processes and encourages organizations to analyze customer and legal requirements, define processes and keep them in control. The new standard ISO 22000 can help food industries reduce food hazards and therefore food incidents, and ease consumers’ concern about food safety.
