Management of Food Safety

The responsibility of providing safe food to the consumer is shared by all the people involved at every stage in the production of food. Since most consumers receive their food from retail and food service establishments, a significant share of the responsibility for providing safe food to the consumer rests with these facilities. Operators of retail and food service establishments can make the greatest impact on food safety. The common goal of operators and regulators of retail and food service establishments is to produce safe, quality food for consumers. Operators of retail and food service establishments routinely respond to inspection findings by correcting violations, but they often do not implement proactive systems of control to prevent violations from recurring. While inspections and enforcement systems contribute a great deal to improving basic sanitation and upgrading facilities, they emphasize reactive rather than preventive measures to food safety. Additional measures must be taken on the part of operators and regulators to better prevent or reduce foodborne illnesses. Safe and adequate food is a human right, safety being a prime quality attribute without which food is unfit for consumption. Food safety regulations are framed to exercise control over all types of food produced, processed, and sold so that the customer is assured that the food consumed will not cause any harm. Every country has been taking adequate measures through practices, codes, regulations, and legislation to ensure that food available in the market is safe. Industrialization resulted in changes in lifestyles and also the production and processing of food in factories on a large scale. Developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom were the first to respond to the changes in the lifestyles and demands of the consumers. From the perspective of emerging and developing countries, implementation of food regulations is required to improve food and nutrition security, the food trade, and the delivery of safe, ready-to-eat (RTE) foods at all places and at all times. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) put forward to transform developing societies include goals that translate to food safety. The success of the MDGs, including that of poverty reduction, will in part depend on an effective reduction of foodborne diseases, particularly among the vulnerable, which include women and children. Food- and waterborne illnesses can be serious health hazards and are responsible for high incidences of morbidity and mortality across all age groups. The enforcement of food regulations would assist in facilitating food trade within and outside developing countries through better compliance, ensuring the safety of RTE catered foods, as well as addressing issues related to the environment. At the same time, regulations need to be optimal, as overregulation may have undue negative effects on 122the food trade. In most of the countries, food safety has gained importance and legal frameworks for food safety are in place. The control institutions have been mandated, and regulations and standards have been implemented along local and regional food supply chains. Still, there is a requirement to have a robust national food safety control system in place. The main reasons why a few countries are not able to have these systems are as follows:

Consumers’ lack of awareness about food safety issues in conjunction with low income levels, leading them to make buying decisions based on prices and not on (largely invisible) food safety and quality criteria

Limited capacities of the national institutions responsible for controlling compliance with plant protection, animal health, and food safety provisions to adapt and adopt international or regional standards

Lack of awareness about food safety and quality issues and the lack of incentives for food supply chain operators—from inputs, through farming, trading, and processing, up to retail—to invest in good practices and quality assurance systems and further also to the basic product quality attribute such as visual features

A complete and comprehensive process has to be followed for ensuring that consumers are able to get safe food. The quality of food is also equally important. Safety of food can be ensured by adopting processes and procedures that will set off an alarm whenever safety has been compromised. However, quality has wider connotations and interpretations, which may involve issues of food security and nutrition as well. To have all such issues addressed in any organization, the solution lies in the establishment of a food safety management program/system. Any such system or program will begin with the systematic identification of food safety hazards that are reasonably likely to occur. During the food handling operations of the business, there are a number of occasions when food can be made unsafe and unsuitable for consumption. The business systematically examines its food handling operations by listing the steps used to produce food in the business in a logical, progressive sequence—that is, from the receipt of food until its final step for sale. A food safety hazard may be a biological, chemical, or physical agent in or a condition of the food that creates the potential for it to be unsafe or unsuitable and cause an adverse health effect in humans. It is only necessary for hazards to be identified if these are reasonably likely to occur due to the specific nature, storage, transportation, preparation, or handling of the food. It is not reasonable to expect businesses to identify hazards that have not yet been discovered, such as new harmful bacteria. The management and control of such identified hazards follows. Every successful food business has to ensure that it is adopting a method or process through which the identified hazard can be controlled. Hazards may be controlled by support programs or at the specific food handling steps. These controls (alone or collectively) must be effective in preventing, eliminating, or reducing the hazard to a safe, acceptable level. The system of management of food safety needs to be monitored continuously to check that the measures adopted are able to contain the hazard. The aim of monitoring is to assess whether the control chosen to manage a hazard is occurring in practice. Monitoring is a checking and confirming process that ensures a hazard is being managed. The food safety program 123must identify how each control measure will be monitored; this includes monitoring support programs. For each monitoring action, the food safety program must identify the frequency, type, areas, and indicators to be monitored. This also helps to assess the need for appropriate corrective actions to control the hazard. When a hazard is found to be not under control, corrective action has to be taken. If monitoring finds that the control step in place to manage a hazard is either not working or is not being followed, corrective action must be taken. A corrective action generally consists of two stages, each addressing the issues concerning the product and the process separately. Firstly, immediate action needs to be taken regarding any food that may be unsafe because the hazard is not under control (i.e., addressing the product). Secondly, there needs to be an investigation into the cause of the “loss of control” of the hazard so that steps can be taken to make sure this loss of control does not happen again (i.e., addressing the process). Constant and continuous review of the program by the food business is essential to ensure the safety of the food. The food safety program must include information about the scope of the review. The person who undertakes the review should be someone familiar with the food safety program and the food business’ operations, and who has the authority to check records and act on the outcomes. The food business should conduct a review of its food safety program at least once a year. However, in the event that there is any change in the business’ food handling activities, or other matters occur that may impact on the food safety program, this review may be required to be undertaken earlier. The scope of the review should describe the food handling operations covered by the review, the procedures and records to be checked, and whether any equipment needs to be checked for accuracy. Maintenance of records as evidence is the most important step in food safety management. Appropriate records are to be kept by the food business, demonstrating action taken to ensure the business is complying with the food safety program. These records must provide sufficient information to show that the business is complying with the food safety program. All records must be kept at least until the next audit of the food safety program. Records can be kept electronically, provided the auditor can access them.