Product safety
Product safety is becoming one of the cornerstones in international trade. Poor product safety can have huge implications to a company’s brand name, reputation, require product recall, end in litigation and in some cases cause a company to close down.
In response to continual problems, some governments have set up offices in certain countries to monitor product safety and ensure manufacturers comply with individual country standards. In essence regulation is getting tougher and companies need to comply or risk losing their business.
However product safety is not limited to manufacturing processes but increasingly includes ingredients and allergens.
Allergen A good allergen control program
A good allergen control program should address:
1. Employee education: Employees must be instructed about the handling of materials that may contain allergens.
2. Supplier monitoring: Product or ingredient formulations, specifications sheets, and certificates of analysis from suppliers of raw materials should be obtained.
3. Control steps: Identifying allergens in raw materials if the manufactured products are not produced on a separate line or complete wet cleaning is not preformed.
4. Cleaning: Allergen control through the reduction of cross-contamination in a manufacturing plant may be enhanced through the production of allergen-containing foods as the last product on the production line followed by a wet cleaning program.
5. Raw material storage: All raw materials and foods that contain allergens should be stored in an area that is secluded or removed from non-allergenic materials.
6. Plant layout: Product flow should be evaluated to determine if allergen-containing materials come in contact with other foods with resultant contamination.
7. Color coding of utensils.
8. Incorporation of reworks: Only like foods should be added to re-worked products.
9. Label review: A system should be developed for maintaining labels that are placed on foods containing allergens in easy-to-identify areas.
10. Documentation review of activities: Documentation is needed to prove what has been done.
11. Evaluation of program effectiveness: Changes in customers, suppliers, and raw materials necessitate the need for continuous re-evaluation of the effectiveness of an allergy control program.
HACCP 7 basic principals
- Analyse hazards : The hazards could be biological, such as a microbe, chemical, such as a toxin, or physical, such as ground glass or metal fragments.
- Identify critical control points : Points in the food production – from its raw state through processing, shipping to consumption by the consumer – at which the potential hazard can be controlled or eliminated.
- Establish preventing measures with critical limits for each control point : Ensure the elimination of any harmful microbes
- Establish procedures to monitor critical control points : Such as when and how cooking time and temperatures should be monitored.
- Establish corrective action to be taken when monitoring shows that a critical limit has not been met: Reprocessing or disposing of food if the minimum cooking time has not been met.
- Establish procedures to verify that the system is working properly: Testing time / temperature recording devices to verify that a cooking unit is working properly.
- Establish effective record keeping to document the HACCP system .
Each of these principals must be backed by sound scientific knowledge, e.g: published microbiological studies on time / temperature factors for controlling food borne pathogens
13 Steps for a HACCP Design Program
1. ASSEMBLE HACCP TEAM
2. DESCRIBE PRODUCT
3. IDENTIFY INTENDED USE
4. CONSTRUCT FLOW DIAGRAM
5. ON-SITE CONFIRMATION OF FLOW DIAGRAM
6. LIST ALL POTENTIAL HAZARDS, CONDUCT A HAZARD ANALYSIS, CONSIDER CONTROL MEASURES
7. DETERMINE CRITICAL CONTROL PLAN
8. ESTABLISH CRITICAL LIMITS FOR EACH CRITICAL CONTROL PLAN
9. ESTABLISH A MONITORING SYSTEM FOR EACH CRITICAL CONTROL PLAN
10. ESTABLISH CORRECTIVE ACTIONS
11. ESTABLISH VERIFICATION PROCEDURES
12. ESTABLISH DOCUMENTATION & RECORD KEEPING
13. TRAINING