The Quality and Food
Safety
The
quality assurance is a guarantee of agreed-upon specifications has been
delivered. In addition to that, few writers conclude that, explicitly or
implicitly that quality is simple, nevertheless many treatises on quality
conclude that it is complex, multidimensional, and relative. According to
Juran, quality is not a scientific or a technical word, it is not a physical
entity, but it is a very useful concept in general life and management. Thus,
terms ‘‘food quality’’ and ‘‘food safety’’ mean different things to different
people based on their perception.
Consequently,
food quality was considered as an interesting concept where it transcends all
steps and all actors within the food chain covering one step forward and one
step backward; however, it is of an intangible nature because it is perceived
individually. Food quality meanings can be varying according to the situation
and can encompass parameters as diverse as organoleptic characteristics,
physical and functional properties, nutrient content and consumer protection
from fraud. On the other hand, safety is more straightforward, relating to the
content of various chemical and microbiological elements in food. Food safety
and food quality assurance are forms of guarantees, where assurance of quality
is a guarantee that agreed-upon specifications have been met. However, if the
safety related specifications are included in the quality assurance system,
then the assurance of quality incorporates safety. Nevertheless, consumer is
the key to defining quality, where a company’s internal definition of quality
is meaningless if it fails to reflect consumer requirements.
In
the current context, food firms are facing increasingly intense competitive
markets and are implementing quality assurance systems where each quality
assurance system covers different quality aspects e.g., some focus on
management aspects (ISO), whereas others focus on technology aspects (GMP,
HACCP). The current standards are developed focusing to run on multiple
platform quality assurance systems which are often combined to assure several
quality aspects, for assuring food safety and food quality e.g., the
combination of HACCP and ISO 9000.
Food Safety and
Standards
According
to the Webster’s Ninth New Collage Dictionary safety was defined as the
“condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury or loss” and
according to the FAO and WHO food safety was the “assurance that food will not
cause any harm to the consumer when prepared and/or consumed according to the
intended use”. Ensuring food safety in current complex society was an
intimidating task which was possible only with corporation and collective
efforts of all stakeholders in food supply chain including consumer
organizations, industry and the government. On the other hand, food safety was
a global phenomenon growing its importance everyday due to the concerns in
public health and impact on global trade.
Quality was an essential necessity of the competitiveness and
organization’s survival in highly competitive global economy with continuous
improvement of product, process and services, where industry has upward moving
trends in implementing food quality assurance systems as well as food safety
assurance systems.
The
food safety assurance systems were required for manufacturing organizations to
ensure food safety and compliance to statutory and regulatory requirements as
well as customer requirements in food supply chain. On the other hand,
organization’s competitiveness and position in global food trade can be strengthened
through implementation of quality assurance systems where quality management
system can be defined as a complete set of written procedures, practical
applications, records of evidence and training. Food manufacturers were
interested in implementing food safety and quality systems such as Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems
to comply with quality practices where ISO 9001 basically concentrate on
process management requirements while HACCP is focused on technological aspects
of food safety assurance. Thus, Manning and Baines emphasized that both food
safety and quality of the product and its manufacturing process can be
addressed through effective quality assurance systems by splitting product and
the process where quality can be defined in terms of intrinsic quality
(product) and extrinsic quality (process).
Good Manufacturing
Practices (GMP)
Food
safety was primarily regulated since mid-1800s but it was mostly the
responsibility of the local or state regulations in US at the time. The good
manufacturing practices (GMP) were a result of requirement for consumer
protection which is a set of regulations issued by authority of the Federal
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In beginning of 20th century there was no any
federal regulation for the protection of public from dangerous products, the
refrigeration means use of ice where
technology was primitive. Actually, the
situation was unthinkable where no pasteurization of milk, chemical
preservatives, toxic colours and uncontrolled medicines on the market were
contained with narcotics such as heroin, opium, and cocaine. In 1903, the
Poison Squad started raising on awareness on need for food safety lead by
Harvey W. Wiley, a chemist working in USDA.
In
1906, Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle”, a graphic exposure of the meat
packing industry which was lead to pass “Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906”. The
1906 law prevented interstate and foreign commerce in misbranded or adulterated
foods, drinks, or drugs. The intent of the Act was to prevent poisoning and
consumer fraud. There were many tragedies occurred afterwards which lead to
further strengthen and extend the regulations by passing The Federal Food, Drug
and Cosmetic Act in 1938. There were drug amendments in 1962, where GMP
regulation were grew due to many tragedies and accidental disasters throughout
the human advancements in the last century to become the current regulations.
The 1962 amendments formalized the good manufacturing practices initially
targeting drug manufacturing industry. However, the GMP regulations for food
processing facilities were finally proposed in 1968 and three broad categories
of interrelated issues arose during the development of the GMPs. The GMP
regulations were finalized in April of 1969 and published as Part 128 of the
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). In 1977, Part 128 was recodified and published
as Part 110 of the CFR.
According
to the General Principles of Food Hygiene of Codex Alimentarius, international
food trades, and foreign travel, are increasing, bringing important social and
economic benefits. But this also makes the spread of illness around the world
easier. Considering the current global food market, food manufacturers have to
decide which quality assurance system is most suitable to their specific
situation and how this system should be implemented, because there are number
of quality assurance systems are available such as GMP, HACCP, ISO 9001, ISO
22000 and the international technical standard of British Retail Consortium
(BRC). These systems and their combinations are applied for assuring food
quality. On the other hand, GMP consists of fundamental principles, procedures
and means needed to design a suitable environment for the production of food of
acceptable quality. The basic aim of the GMP codes is to combine procedures for
manufacturing and quality control in such a way that products are manufactured
consistently to a quality appropriate to their intended use. Nevertheless,
regulatory requirements for a well-designed GMP program is varied by the type
of product being produced and by the position of the product in the
manufacturing process and supply chain where it is important for all food
manufacturers to understand the appropriate GMP for their individual products.
A
properly designed GMP system must have an appropriate infrastructure or
“quality system”, encompassing the organizational structure, procedures,
processes and resources. It also needs to have systematic actions necessary to
ensure adequate confidence that a product (or service) will satisfy given
requirements for quality. Based on this principle, GMPs are
being applied to maintain the certainty of safety in the final product where it
claims for the minimum sanitary and processing requirements to ensure the
production of wholesome food. These requirements can be categorized in to four
segments which are production and process controls, personnel practices,
building facilities, equipment and utensils. On the other hand, all the
employees involved in food supply chain to manufacture, pack and distribute
food products for the consumption of humans, has to understand basic principles
of sanitation with skills for application. Thus, human factor is one of most
important criteria in GMP, where employee hygiene is paramount to plant
sanitation and is one of the leading causes of food contamination. In addition,
manufacturers are legally liable to take necessary measures and precautions for
disease control, personnel cleanliness, supervision, education and training to
comply with GMP.
HACCP
The
Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) system was first invented for
NASA with collaboration of Pillsbury Corporation and US Army due to the risk
involved in supplying preserved food for astronauts and it is a common-sense
approach in identifying, quantifying and controlling food safety hazards. The
HACCP allow food manufacturer to carry out a detailed examination of a process
to identify hazards and where the hazards can be controlled by setting up a
framework which is a food safety management strategy that has been widely
tested and established as an effective means of preventing food-borne diseases
when correctly implemented. HACCP has designed in a way that it can be
considered as a scientific and systematic system to assure food safety, while
applying throughout the whole food chain.
HACCP
is a management system where food safety was addressed through the analysis and
control of biological, chemical and physical hazards starting from raw material
production, procurement and handling to manufacturing, distribution and
consumption of the finished product at consumers end. The HACCP system is a
proven, cost-effective method of maximizing food safety, where it focuses on
hazard control at its source and consists of seven principles of international
acceptance that outline how to establish, implement and maintain an HACCP plan
for an operation under the consideration. Nevertheless, most of the countries
had made responsible food manufactures to oblige by legislation to apply HACCP,
while other systems are applied voluntarily in the food industry.
In
addition, FDA has emphasized the role of prerequisite programs (PRPs) for the
implementation of HACCP where it has been recommended to apply prerequisite
programs before the HACCP plan is utilized. Besides, HACCP complements the
total quality management because it offers continuous problem prevention.
Accordingly, adaptation to a food quality/food safety management system and
being able to signal it to consumers, firms can gain marketing advantage and
competitive advantages in the consumer level.
ISO 22000
The
ISO
22000 is developed for food industry where it is directly applicable with the
core production areas of food manufacturing process which is a valuable tool
for food manufacturers in order to ensure that both quality assurance standards
and food quality procedures have been met and achieved. The implementation of ISO
22000 in food industry is related to the structure of food factory, to the
nature and number of food products that produced and consumed globally and
finally, to the procedures of production. Due to the growth of information age
as well as creation of awareness among consumers, the food safety requirement
is never being so as high today where ISO 22000 has become a valuable tool in
assessing and preventing food safety even before it started. In contrast, quality is a very difficult term
to define or to understand and measuring which cannot be taken as an
absolute.
FSSC 22000
According
to Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000), the scheme is developed
using the international and independent standards ISO 22000, ISO 22003 and
technical specifications for sector PRPs, like ISO 22002-1 and PAS 223, to
design a more focused food safety management system which is a private standard
that requires more than the minimum requirements to comply and it was developed
through a wide and open consultation with a large number of related
organizations. The FSSC 22000 certification scheme is developed as an
independent private standard in response to the need of the international food
sector to have an independent ISO-based food safety management scheme with
third party auditing and certification. The FSSC 22000 certification is
supported by the European Food and Drink Association (CIAA) and the American
Groceries Manufacturing Association (GMA). FSSC 22000 is fully recognized by
the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and Accreditation Bodies around the
world. According to the global food safety initiative (GFSI), ISO 22000:2005
was having problems in defining prerequisite programs because set
specifications are not adequate to define PRPs, where GFSI has introduced
clearly defined PRPs and other regulatory controls in FSSC 22000.
Considering
the FSSC 22000, Food safety management and HACCP are greater part the
requirements which are directly based on ISO 22000, but the PRPs are having
different perspective for ensuring food safety is that food manufacturing
organizations maintain the conditions for hygienic environment and production.
Since ISO 22000 has not fulfilled this requirement properly at the beginning,
FSSC 22000 has taken explicit measures on the requirements of PRPs which allows
ISO 22000 certification schemes to be benchmarked by independent regulatory
organizations such as Global Food Safety Initiative of Foundation of CIES
(GFSI), the British Standards Institution (BSI), the Confederation of the food
and drink industries of the EU (CIAA).
The
GFSI scheme recognized PRP requirements were developed in compliance with the
general principles of food hygiene of the Codex Alimentarius, the guidelines
for drinking-water quality of the WHO, the specification BSI-PAS 96 and the key
element good manufacturing practices of the GFSI guidance document (fifth
edition; section 6.2). The developed standard also called the BSI-PAS 220,
which considered most suitable to be included in this scheme in conjunction
with the requirements of clause 7.2 of ISO 22000. Thus, there are no very
special additional features in FSSC 22000, other than improving the
prerequisite requirements and streamlining the structural issues. However, it
further added the new guidelines and compliance criteria which increase the
compliance levels above the minimum requirements which one of the major
differentiations of any private standard.
BRC Standard
British
Retail Consortium introduce the BRC Food Technical Standard in 1998 to be used
to evaluate manufacturers of retailer’s own brand food products, as a result of
industry needs due to food safety issues in the market. The standard is designed to assist retailers
and brand owners who produce food products of consistent safety and quality
through contract manufacturers to assist their 'due diligence' defense, in case
should they be subject to a prosecution by the enforcement authorities. The
standard was originally developed in response to the needs of UK members of the
British Retail Consortium, but it has gained usage world-wide and are specified
by growing numbers of retailers and branded manufacturers in the EU, North
America and other parts of the world. The certification is achieved through
audit by third party certification service providers which reassure retailers
and branded manufacturers of the capability and competence of the supplier. The
independent third-party compliance reduces the need for retailers and
manufacturers to carry out their own audits, thereby reducing the administrative
burden on both the supplier and the customer. The Certification to the BRC
applicable to products that have been manufactured or prepared only at the site
where the evaluation has taken which further includes storage facilities that
are under the direct control of the production site management.
The
standard is usually updated regularly where most current version for food is
“Issue 07” (BRC Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 7 was published in
January 2015) which sets out requirements to specify the food safety, quality
and operational criteria required to be in place within a food manufacturing
organization to fulfill obligations with regard to legal compliance and
protection of the consumer. The Standard is designed to allow an assessment of
a company’s premises, operational systems and procedures by a competent third
party, the certification body, against the requirements of the Standard. The
major requirement of the BRC is also same as ISO 22000, FSSC 22000 where
adoption and implementation of HACCP, with an effective documented food
safety/quality management system while controlling the factory environmental
standards, products, processes and personnel.
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