ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Systems

• By: Staff Editor
• Date: July 08, 2009

Overview

ISO 22000 is an international standard that defines the requirements of a food safety management system covering all organizations in the food chain from “farm to fork”. 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 should use ISO 22000?
Since ISO 22000 is a generic food safety management standard, it can be used by any organization directly or indirectly involved in the food chain. It applies to all organizations in the food chain. The food chain consists of the entire sequence of stages and operations involved in the creation and consump-tion of food products. This includes every step from initial production to final consumption. More pre-cisely, it includes the production, processing, distribution, storage, and handling of all food and food in-gredients. The food chain also includes organizations that do not directly handle food. These include organizations that produce feed for animals that produce food and for animals that will be used as food. It also includes organizations that produce materials that will eventually come into contact with food or food ingredients.

ISO 22000 can be used by:

ISO 22000 and HACCP
ISO 22000 uses HACCP. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. It was developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. HACCP is a methodology and a management system. It is used to identify, prevent, and control food safety hazards. HACCP management systems apply the following methodology:

1. Conduct a food safety hazard analysis.
2. Identify critical control points (CCPs).
3. Establish critical limits for each critical control point.
4. Develop procedures to monitor critical control points.
5. Design corrective actions to handle critical limit violations.
6. Create a food safety record keeping system.
7. Validate and verify your system.

ISO 22000 shows organizations how to combine the HACCP plan with prerequisite programs (or pro-grammes) and operational prerequisite programs into a single integrated food safety management strategy.

Prerequisite programs (PRPs)
These are the conditions that must be established throughout the food chain and the activities and prac-tices that must be performed in order to establish and maintain a hygienic environment. PRPs must be suitable and be capable of providing food that is safe for human consumption. PRPs are also referred to as:

• good hygienic practices,
• good agricultural practices,
• good production practices,
• good manufacturing practices,
• good distribution practices, and
• good trading practices.

Operational prerequisite programs (OPRPs)
These are prerequisite programs (PRPs) that are essential. They are essential because a hazard analysis has shown that they are necessary in order to control specific food safety hazards. OPRPs are used to re-duce the likelihood that products will be exposed to hazards, that they will be contaminated, and that hazards will proliferate. OPRPs are also used to reduce the likelihood that the processing environment will be exposed to hazards.

Benefits for users

• Organizations implementing the standard will benefit from:
• organized and targeted communication among trade partners ;
• optimization of resources (internally and along the food chain) ;
• improved documentation;
• better planning, less post process verification ;
• more efficient and dynamic control of food safety hazards;
• all control measures subjected to hazard analysis ;
• systematic management of prerequisite programmes;
• wide application because it is focused on end results;
• valid basis for taking decisions;
• increased due diligence ;
• control focused on what is necessary, and
• saving resources by reducing overlapping system audits.

Benefit for other stakeholders
Other stakeholders will benefit from confidence that the organizations which are implementing ISO 22000 have the ability to identify and control food safety hazards.

Value-adding features

• It is an auditable standard with clear requirements;
• It is internationally accepted;
• It integrates and harmonizes various existing national and industry-based certification schemes;
• Food processing industries are waiting for this standard;
• It is aligned with both ISO 9001:2000 and HACCP;
• It contributes to a better understanding and further development of HACCP.

Documents: ISO 22000:2005 is the first in a family of standards that include the following documents:

Organizations behind ISO 22000
ISO 22000 and ISO/TS 22004 are the output of working group WG 8, Food Safety Management Systems, of ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 34, Food Products. Experts from 23 countries participated in the working group, together with international organizations with liaison status. In addition to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, these included the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA), and the World Food Safety Organization (WFSO). They have been joined for the development of ISO/TS 22003 by experts from the ISO committee on conformity assessment, ISO/CASCO, the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the IQNet international certification net-work.

Source:

1. http://www.bsigroup.co.in/en-in/Assessment-and-certification-services/Management-systems/Standards-and-schemes/ISO-22000
2. http://www.praxiom.com/iso-22000-intro.htm
3. http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-22000_food_safety.pdf