Food Safety Update

By Steve Upton

Food safety is something we all take for granted. No one expects their food or drink to "bite back" and make them ill, however over 50 million Americans every year suffer some type of food related illness or even death. Currently most of our food safety is reactive, inspection based, where tests can take longer to develop than the food takes us to consume, where in reality we are walking test tubes for product testing. Thank goodness for the pharmaceutical industry!

Many manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are members of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), which is a collaboration between some of the world's leading food safety experts including retailer, manufacturer and food service companies, as well as service providers associated with the food supply chain. It is coordinated by The Consumer Goods Forum, the only independent global network for consumer goods retailers and manufacturers worldwide. It serves the CEOs and senior management of nearly 400 members, in over 150 countries

To our advantage, most of the food we consume is safe, wholesome and of good quality because food organizations utilize GMP's (good manufacturing practices) and HACCP (Hazard and Critical Control Plans) to identify, manage and control risk associated with their products. However more and more retailers (GFSI members such as Target and Wal-Mart) are enforcing third party approval of GFSI benchmarked and approved schemes.

One of the most recently approved GFSI schemes is based on ISO 22000.2005, which in itself was not approved by the GFSI, but in conjunction with PAS.220 2008 has been full approved by the GFSI under the FSSC 22000 2010 certification scheme for Food Safety management Systems for Food manufacturing. It is the standard of choice for organizations who have had passed experience of other QMS (ISO 9001) programs.

NQA is one of very few Certification Bodies currently contracted by the FSSC to provide third party certification to FSSC 22000 and is already a leading provider here in North America as well as globally for food safety management system registration. The NQA program for FSSC 22000 incorporates an easy-to-use and unique implementation checklist which, when used by an organization during FSSC 22000 implementation and development, will help to ensure their FSMS is comprehensively implemented.

Keep an eye out for the next NQA newsletter, which will include one organization's view of FSSC 22000, including some of the pitfalls and pleasures of implementation and registration.