ISO 22000 / HACCP (FSMS)

Food Safety is linked to the presence of food-borne hazards in food at the point of consumption. Since food safety hazards can occur at any stage in the food chain it is essential that adequate control be in place. Therefore, a combined effort of all parties through the food chain is required.

The HACCP Seven Principles

Principle 1: Conduct a hazard analysis. Plans determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive measures the plan can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.

Principle 2: Identify critical control points. A Critical Control Point (CCP) is a point, step, or procedure in a food manufacturing process at which control can be applied and, as a result, a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.

Principle 3: Establish critical limits for each critical control point. A critical limit is the maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point to prevent, eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level.

Principle 4: Establish critical control point monitoring requirements. Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure that the process is under control at each critical control point. In the United States, the FSIS is requiring that each monitoring procedure and its frequency be listed in the HACCP plan.

Principle 5: Establish corrective actions. These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation from an established critical limit. The final rule requires a plant’s HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product injurious to health or otherwise adulterated as a result of the deviation enters commerce.

Principle 6: Establish record keeping procedures. The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing deviations.

Principle 7: Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended. Validation ensures that the plants do what they were designed to do; that is, they are successful in ensuring the production of safe product. Plants will be required to validate their own HACCP plans. FSIS will not approve HACCP plans in advance, but will review them for conformance with the final rule.

Verification ensures the HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities as review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits and microbial sampling and analysis.

FSIS is requiring that the HACCP plan include verification tasks to be performed by plant personnel. Verification tasks would also be performed by FSIS inspectors.

Both FSIS and industry will undertake microbial testing as one of several verification activities. Verification also includes ‘validation’ – the process of finding evidence for the accuracy of the HACCP system (e.g. scientific evidence for critical limitations).

The standard combines generally recognized key elements to ensure food safety along the food chain, including:

• Interactive communication
• System management
• Control of food safety hazards through pre-requisite programmes and HACCP plans
• Continual improvement and updating of the food safety management system

Who Can Go For HACCP Standard?

ISO 22000 is a truly international standard suitable for any business in the entire food chain, including inter-related organizations such as producers of equipment, packaging material, cleaning agents, additives and ingredients.

ISO 22000:2005 / HACCP is also for companies seeking to integrate their quality management system, for example ISO 9001:2008, and their food safety management system.

Benefits Of ISO 22000:2005 / HACCP

Certifying your food management system against the requirements of ISO 22000 will bring the following benefits to your organization:

• An auditable standard with clear requirements which provides a framework for third-party certification
• Suitable for regulators
• The structure aligns with the management system clauses of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001
• Enables communication about hazards with partners in the supply chain
• System approach, rather than product approach
• Applicable to all organizations in the global food supply chain
• Systematic management of prerequisite programmes
• Increased due diligence
• Dynamic communication on food safety issues with suppliers, customers, regulators and other interested parties A truly global international standard
• Provides potential for harmonization of national standards
• Covers the majority of the requirements of the current retailer food safety standards
• Complies with the Codex HACCP principles
• Provides communication of HACCP concepts internationally
• A systematic and proactive approach to identification of food safety hazards and development and implementation of control measures
• Resource optimization – internally and along the food chain
• All control measures are subjected to hazard analysis
• Better planning – less post process verification
• Improved documentation