Food Quality and Safety - I

The Quality

The definition of quality depends on the role of the people defining it. Most consumers have a difficult time defining quality, but they know it when they see it. For example, although you probably have an opinion as to which manufacturer of athletic shoes provides the highest quality; it would probably be difficult for you to define your quality standard in precise terms. Also, your friends may have different opinions regarding which French Fries are of highest quality. The difficulty in defining quality exists regardless of product, and this is true for both manufacturing and service organizations. Think about how difficult it may be to define quality for products such as airline services, child day-care facilities, college classes, or even textbooks. Further complicating issue is that, the meaning of quality has changed over time. Today, there is no single universal definition of quality. However, the term quality can be defined as “the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence or something”, or “a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something” or “good quality; excellent”.

The Evolution of Quality

The quality assurance was always there from the prehistoric times, but it was not practiced as a concept at least until a century ago due to the misunderstanding that it was an additional cost to the product. Thus, concept of quality has existed for many years, though it’s meaning has rapidly changed and evolved over last half century. In the early twentieth century, quality management meant inspecting products to ensure that they met specifications. In the 1940s, during World War II, quality became more statistical in nature. Statistical sampling techniques were used to evaluate quality, and quality control charts were used to monitor the production process. In the 1960s, with the help of so called “quality gurus,” the concept took on a broader meaning. Quality began to be viewed as something that encompassed the entire organization, not only the production process. Since all functions were responsible for product quality and all shared the costs of poor quality, quality was seen as a concept that affected the entire organization.

Further, during the World War II quality assurance initiated as a primary concept in production to deal with quality issues identified in defense equipment and weaponry. Thus, U.S. Department of Defense initiated and implemented one of the world first quality control programs where finish product testing was the main concern.  This initiative was followed by the United Kingdom who developed their own quality standard for military equipment manufacturing. These practices were later spread into other countries where it formed a basis for development of set of quality assurance standards which was adopted by the all members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and it was called the Allied Quality Assurance Publication (AQAP). The development continued even after the World War II and US government use the quality standards while contracting defense equipment purchasing where contractors were encouraged and expected to implement those standard practices within their manufacturing processes.

The meaning of quality for businesses changed dramatically in the late 1970s. Before then quality was still viewed as something that needed to be inspected and corrected. However, in the 1970s and 1980s many U.S. industries lost market share to foreign competition. In the auto industry, manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda became major players. In the consumer goods market, companies such as Toshiba and Sony led the way. These foreign competitors were producing lower priced products with considerably higher quality. Thus, to survive, companies had to make major changes in their quality programs. Many hired consultants and instituted quality training programs for their employees, where a new concept of quality was emerged. Nonetheless, quality began to have a strategic meaning. Today, successful companies understand that quality provides a competitive advantage, where they put the customer first and define quality as meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

Since the 1970s, competition based on quality has grown in importance and has generated tremendous interest, concern, and enthusiasm. Companies in every line of business are focusing on improving quality in order to be more competitive. In many industries quality excellence has become a standard for doing business. Companies that do not meet these standards simply will not survive. Thus, importance of quality is demonstrated by many national quality awards and quality certifications that are coveted by businesses.

Evolution of Standards

The quality assurance was in people’s minds from the prehistoric times, but it was practiced as a concept and started shaping the industry dimensions around the last century. International standardization began in the early 20th century with the creation of the International Electro Technical Commission (IEC) in 1906 and the ISO was begun in 1926 under the name of International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA) which was basically focused on mechanical engineering and disbanded in 1942 during the Second World War. However, it was reorganized in 1946 as ISO which is the current name of the organization and it was stipulated as a voluntary umbrella organization where it’s members were national standardization authorities; each member representing one country. The practices spread around the world while quality standards were further developed where International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was formed with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The ISO published its first standard in 1951 and it has published 10,060 standards by 1998. 

ISO Standards were not limited to one or two subject area, it covers a multitude of topics including, but not limited to, paper sizes, a uniform system of measurement, symbols for automobile controls, film speed codes, and an internationally standardized freight container, etc. Consequently, one of the initial members of the Organization; the British Standards Institute (BSI) initiated a proposal to develop an international quality assurance and management standard in 1979. In addition, UK government published a white paper on "Standards, Quality and International Competitiveness” that introduced the concept of achieving certification as a marketing tool in 1982 which helps ISO standards to become as a popular marketing tool. Nonetheless, the ISO commenced a technical committee on the initiative which was ISO/TC 176 with twenty-member nations and another 14 nations as observing members. Thus, ISO published its first quality assurance standard in 1987 after eight years of hard work from the initiation which was called the ISO 9000 series. The initial ISO 9000 standard was mostly identical with BS 5750 with three models for quality management system and the selection was based on the scope of the organization. On the other hand, it reflects much of its military inheritance in the initial version. The methodology and practices learnt in the process was applied in to other areas of manufacturing to help the industry as well as to support the globalization of human society where various ISO series were developed later, i.e. ISO 14001 Environmental Management System, ISO 27001 Information Security Management, ISO 22000 Food Safety Management System, etc. 

ISO 9000

ISO 9001:2008 was the previous quality standard applicable in the market which was further improved into ISO 9001:2015 recently. All the versions of the ISO 9001 had intended to evaluate the firm’s ability to effectively design, produce, and deliver quality products and services while enhancing customer satisfaction by including more top-management involvement and continual improvement. ISO 9001 use a process approach which aims to achieve customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements while improving the system continuously and to prevent nonconformity in products and/or services. The standard provides guidelines for organizations to establish their quality systems by focusing on procedures, control, and documentation, while conceptualizing that certain minimum characteristics of a quality management system could be usefully standardized, giving mutual benefit to suppliers and customers, and focusing on process rather than product/service quality. Considering the customer focus as one of the key area of customers’ needs and expectations, one of the most important customer expectations in their list is to have safe food products, where ISO 9001 allows an

organization to integrate its quality management system with the implementation of a food safety system. According to Bolton, food companies can implement quality assurance systems according to ISO 9000 series, while ensuring quality procedures and reinforcing legislative requirements. On the other hand, ISO 9001 standard is internationally recognized and designed to demonstrate its ability to transform the supplying organization to achieve a basic level of quality by the formalization and documentation of its quality management system, where its effective deployment has been widely recognized in recent years as a means of building sustainable competitive advantage and thereby enhancing firm performance.

Private Standards

After 2000, there is an overwhelming demand for the product standards which later shifted into process standards and it further tighten the application of public standards. Nonetheless, this has widened the scope of the standard while increasing the importance of the private standards which has created concerns in developing countries as they are becoming big block of non-tariff measures. Since WTO member countries should follow reduced tariff over imports, developed countries are using these measures to control imports from developing countries through standards, which intern could potentially result

in loss of international market, a decrease in employment and a decline of an industry. Thus, compliance improves brand image, competitiveness, and opportunities in new markets which encourage the advancement of an industry.