Food Industry Page

Every food business is required to follow the legal requirements for food safety, such as EU regulation (EC) 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (EC, 2004)

The general principles of food safety require every business operator along the food chain to ensure that the safety of food is maintained.

The key obligations of food operators

According to the EU General Food Law the key obligations of food handling businesses are:

• Safety: do not sell unsafe food
• Responsibility: the food business is responsible for the food it transports, stores and sells
• Traceability: all suppliers and consignees must be identifiable
• Transparency: relevant authorities must be informed if food that the operator transports, stores or sells is not safe
• Emergency: food believed to be unsafe must be withdrawn immediately
• Prevention: operators must identify and critical points in their processes, apply controls and review them regularly
• Co-operation: co-operate with relevant authorities to reduce risks to food safety.

Grocery stores

Grocery store activities can cover a wide range, including food processing and food serving, so operators need to follow a wide set of safety procedures. The activities of the business can include (FAO, 2014):

• Simple processing operations such as cleaning, sorting, grading, fumigation and packaging operations (fruits and vegetables, staple foods)
• Processed food, private labels or own-brand manufacturing/ processing through contract manufacturers
• Branded product procurements and supply chain, including warehousing cold chain
• Front-end retail activities including ‘shop-in-shop’ activity
• Eateries, restaurants, milling, bakery, preparing and packing cut fruit and vegetables, wine shops, etc
• Fresh meat/fish (shop-in-shop or stand-alone)
• Live seafood/fish

Food safety management and hygiene practices

These are general guidelines applicable for all food businesses and activities to achieve the minimum standards to ensure safety for the consumer (FAO, 2014).

• Facility environment: the location of the facility should be a safe environment and the site kept clear of rubbish, harbourage for pests and stagnant water
• Facility layout and design: the design and layout should provide adequate loading and unloading areas protected from rain and pests, and separate storage, processing, packing etc, areas
• Construction in handling and storage areas:
  • Walls and partitions: smooth surfaces with no flaking paint
  • Windows and vents: easy to clean and designed to prevent pest access
  • Doors: smooth, non-absorbent, easy to clean with self-closing devices to prevent dust and pests entering the facility
  • Drainage systems: these should be of suitable design and construction for the business operations to prevent cross contamination and stagnant foul water. Drains should prevent entry of pests and allow cleaning
  • Temperature control: for products that are temperature sensitive, the temperature during handling and storage should have suitable control and monitoring
  • Ventilation: should be appropriate to control temperature, air quality and humidity and prevent contamination of clean areas. There should be practices to maintain ventilation systems and keep them cleaned
  • Lighting: lighting intensity, whether natural or artificial should be suitable for the operations. Fixtures should be designed for easy cleaning, prevent accumulation of dirt and constructed of shatterproof material to prevent contamination of products with broken parts
  • Power backup: backup power supply should be available to maintain suitable temperature of chilled and frozen foods
• Equipment: equipment and containers used for handling or processing food should be designed, constructed and located to ensure food safety, enable adequate maintenance, cleaning and good hygienic practices. Maintenance and cleaning procedures should be documented and records kept
• Staff facilities: there should be adequate facilities for personal hygiene, including toilet and handwashing facilities with soap, and hot & cold water of drinkable quality. Staff may also need changing facilities.
• Personal health and hygiene: staff should be trained in the use of hygienic practices appropriate for their roles, including handwashing after using the toilet, touching raw food, unclean materials, parts of the body; prevention of cross contamination; and control of personal habits such as spitting, chewing, smoking, eating and wearing jewellery, in places where they could contaminate consumer products
• Cleaning and hygiene: there should be programmes setting cleaning schedules, responsibilities, methods, equipment, and materials suitable for use on premises handling food; and facilities for the appropriate storage of the chemicals used, to prevent contamination of raw and prepared food and packaged products
• Water quality: the water that is used for food production, cleaning and in staff facilities should be of drinakble quality
• Waste management: procedures, facilities and suitable equipment should be in place to ensure safe collection, storage and disposal of waste. This should include maintenance of cleanliness in waste storage areas, prevention of cross contamination of food and non-food products and prevention of pests
• Transport: vehicles and containers used for transporting food and non-food products should be suitable for the purpose, kept in good condition, clean and free of pests. Transport systems should prevent cross contamination of food products from containers and non-food items and maintain suitable conditions such as temperature and humidity, that are appropriate for the products
• Training: training in food safety principles and practices should be provided for all employees according to their roles
• Pest control: pest control measures should include the monitoring, identifying, controlling and documenting of pest infestations and measures carried out. These activities should be done by professionally trained personnel

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Warehouses and distribution centres

Food safety procedures include:

• Bays: loading and unloading bays should be covered
• Handling of products: products should be handled appropriately during loading, unloading and stacking so that packaging is not damaged and product safety compromised
• Layout: the layout for food and non-food item storage areas should be clearly demarcated and hazardous substances separated from food
• Drains: there should be no open drains inside the storage and operation area
• Temperature: correct temperature should be maintained for products such as dairy, frozen and chilled products and confectionary. The temperature should be monitored at regular intervals and recorded
• Dust: storage racks and products should be kept free from dust and products protected by packaging
• Forklift trucks: there should be specified areas for parking, charging and repairing. Contamination of floors and products with grease or oil should be prevented by suitable maintenance
• Staff behaviour: warehouse staff should maintain hygienic practices in the product storage and working areas: no eating, drinking, smoking, spitting, climbing on or sitting on packages, or opening of packages (theft)
• Control of shelf life: products should be accepted and sent to the stores following recognised practices, such as first-in-first-out, so that product quality for the consumer is maintained
• Damaged and expired stock: these items should be separated and stored in designated areas and clearly labelled. There should be appropriate procedures to ensure items are sent for disposal regularly and records maintained

HACCP for food retail

Grocery stores that produce fresh and cooked foods in store are required to follow the same food safety procedures as restaurants and other food serving businesses.

Stores can apply the same safety principles based on HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) as the food processing industry, but adapted for their much more varied conditions and production.

• Unlike a factory production line, there is a large variation of production techniques, products, menu items and ingredients and changes occur frequently
• Also there is often high turnover of staff, which results in employees having less experience of food safety and training being required more often (Food and Drug Administration, 2013)

HACCP principles are applied to protect food from biological, physical and chemical food safety hazards by applying controls that prevent direct contamination and cross contamination.

Hazards can be introduced anywhere in the supply chain from production on the farm, to transport during storage and processing in the retail store.

Raw animal products such as meat, eggs, fish and shellfish, and especially poultry, can carry microorganisms that are harmful to the consumer. In store, staff surfaces and equipment can introduce hazards to the food (Food and Drug Administration, 2006).

Food safety hazards

• Biological agents:
  • Bacteria and their toxins
  • Viruses
  • Parasites
• Physical objects:
  • Bone and metal fragments
  • Packaging materials
  • Wound dressings — bandages, plasters
  • Jewellery
  • Stones
  • Pests: flies, mice, cockroaches, ants, etc and their body parts
  • Glass
• Chemical contaminants:
  • Plant and animal toxins
  • Unlabelled allergens
  • Cleaning compounds
  • Food additives
  • Pesticides

Cross contamination

Cross contamination is the transfer of disease-causing microorganisms or allergens from one food to another. It is one of the most important factors in causing food-borne illnesses.

All employees should be trained in the principles of cross contamination, including production, sanitation, maintenance, quality assurance as well as any other employees that could enter food handling areas or come into contact with employees that do.

7 principles of HACCP

1. Perform a hazard analysis: define the operation steps required to prepare the food, eg receiving, storage, preparation, cooking, chilling. Determine the control measures to prevent and control food hazards
2. Decide the critical control points (CCPs) that are essential for eliminating hazards
3. Determine critical limits ie measurable and observable parameter
4. Establish procedures to monitor CCPs. Make direct observations and measurements of CCPs
5. Establish corrective actions to prevent the process from causing critical limits to be reached
6. Establish verification procedures to ensure the HACCP process is performing as planned by observing activities, calibrating equipment, review records and discuss procedures with employees
7. Establish a record keeping system for the HACCP plan and for the associated activities, including monitoring, corrective action, calibration etc

In retail food preparation, the more varied nature of the foods prepared, processes and ingredients used necessitates the adoption of a different approach from food processors.

The ‘Process Approach’

The FDA suggests that the ‘Process Approach’ is used by food retailers, which divides the process into broad categories and applying hazard analysis to each category (Food and Drug Administration, 2006).

The Process Approach identifies three preparation processes based on the number of times food temperature crosses the ‘temperature danger zone’ of 41-135°F (7.2-57.2°C):

• Process 1: food preparation with no cook step: this covers a wide range of foods including salads, cheeses, deli meats, raw oysters, burger meat, steaks.
  eg Receive → Store → Prepare → Hold → Serve
• Process 2: food preparation for same day service: cooked and held hot.
  eg Receive → Store → Prepare → Cook → Hold → Serve
• Process 3: complex food preparation: cooked in large volume for next day service.
  eg Receive → Store → Prepare → Cook → Cool → Reheat → Hot → Hold → Serve

Cold holding prevents bacterial growth and toxin production, cooking kills microorganisms and parasites, hot holding prevents growth of bacteria, cooling inhibits growth of bacteria. The three processes are illustrated in the diagram below.

The passage of food through the temperature danger zone for three processing categories
(Food and Drug Administration, 2006)

Preventive security measures

Food security measures are designed to protect food supplied by businesses from malicious, criminal and terrorist activities.

The retail sector is on the front line in protecting the consumer directly from tampered products and other malicious acts affecting safety of food.

GFSI guidelines for manufacturing now include measures for food defence aimed at “preventing, protecting, and responding to the deliberate contamination of food by bacterial agents, toxins, chemicals, radiation or a physical object”.

Management

• Preparation: assign management responsibility, assess security procedures, prepare a strategy, plan emergency response, promote awareness among staff, and prepare a communications plan for staff and the public
• Supervision: all staff, from temporary workers, cleaners and maintenance staff, contract workers to office staff and new staff should come under a supervisory system to prevent security breaches. This includes regular security checks of buildings and computer systems
• Investigation and alerting: investigate any signs or information of security breaches and inform relevant authorities such as police and health
• Evaluation: periodically evaluate previous activities and review and verify effectiveness of current measures

Staff

• Screening: verify the identity of all staff on the premises, eg using references, address, phone number, obtain background information, including criminal background check if appropriate (and legal)
• Identification: establish a system of identification and recognition of staff where appropriate eg by using uniforms, name badges, ID cards, and take them back when staff leave
• Shift assignments: management of people on the premises, knowing who is onsite and where they should be
• Restricted access: set up a system to control access of staff, visitors and the public to different areas of the facility where appropriate and set up a security system to control access
• Personal items: control personal items, including medicines, allowed in sensitive areas that could be a threat to hygiene or safety
• Security training: provide training how to prevent, detect and respond to tampering or other security threats
• Monitor staff behaviour: be aware of and watch for unusual behaviour that is not appropriate for the role of the person involved
• Staff health: unusual health conditions among staff can indicate malicious activity, so management should be alert to these occurrences

Public

• Customers: control access to areas where the public should be restricted and set up monitoring systems to detect unusual activity/ behaviour from the public
• Visitors: all visitors, including contractors, sales reps, delivery drivers, couriers, pest control technicians, auditors, regulators, press, and tour groups should be identified, verified, monitored and controlled while on the premises

Facility

• Physical security: this includes building construction and design e.g. doors, windows, vents, and security systems, e.g. alarm systems, surveillance systems, key management, security patrols, security lighting, parking control
• Storage and use of toxic chemicals: toxic chemicals used for cleaning, sanitising and pest control should be stored securely and in safe areas, labelled properly and monitored for safe use and misuse

Operations

• Incoming products: use only permitted suppliers with secure delivery systems; verify and monitor deliveries, shipping documents and incoming products; check for abnormal signs and counterfeiting; alert law enforcement and health agencies as appropriate
• Storage: keep track of products and materials; establish a system for managing returned and damaged products, missing and extra stock
• Food service and retail check for products in unusual conditions that could be a sign of tampering; monitor poisonous and toxic chemicals that are on sale; monitor self-service food areas
• Water and utilities: maintain security of air, water, electricity and refrigeration and be aware of potential threats
• Mail & packages: have procedures for monitoring security incoming mail and packages
• Computer systems: implement adequate computer security systems, including staff access, up to date security software and firewalls

Consumer Protection

Food producers and retailers have a duty to not only ensure food is safe but also to provide information to consumers about foods that is clear, accurate and based on scientific evidence. Legislation prohibits the use of information and claims about food that is misleading. This also ensures fair competition between businesses.

Food labelling is the prime means of informing the consumer about the food they are purchasing. Legislation on food labelling guides producers and retailers and gives consumers rights to basic information, such as ingredients, nutrition, origin and safety information — including storage life, handling, preparation instructions and allergens. The type of information, design of labels (eg size, position and layout of important information) and the wording used are controlled by legislation.

Food labelling in the EU

In the EU, recent legislation modernised the framework on nutrition information. Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 combines two previous Directives on labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs and nutrition labelling and repeals several others (European Commission, 2016).

The remit of the FIC Regulation is to “serve the interests of the internal market” by:

• simplifying the law;
• ensuring legal certainty;
• reducing administrative burden; and
• benefit citizens by requiring clear, comprehensible and legible labelling of foods.

Nutrition information

New sections of the EU food law will come into effect on 13 December 2016 that require certain nutrition information to be provided to consumers. The key points are:

• The legislation applies to businesses at all stages of the food chain and to all foods intended for final consumption, including food delivered by, or supplied to, mass caterers.
• Responsibility for providing the necessary information, and ensuring it is accurate, lies with the manufacturer marketing the food under their name. If they are based outside the EU, it lies with the importer.
• Mandatory information includes: the food’s name, list of ingredients, net quantity, use by date, instructions for use if necessary, operator’s name and address and a nutrition declaration.
• Food information should not mislead the public, particularly by suggesting it possesses special characteristics or effects it does not have. It should be accurate, clear and easy for the consumer to understand.
• There is additional mandatory information for certain types of food, containing ingredients such as sweeteners, ammonium salt or high caffeine content and for engineered nanomaterials.
• Foods such as herbs and spices, flavourings, herbal teas, fresh fruit and vegetables, carbonated water, vinegars, and dairy items like cheese, butter, cream and fermented milk, do not need to have a list of ingredients.

Labelling confusion

The amount of information on food supplied to consumers is increasing, due to both legislation and demand from consumers.

Scientific research has increased our knowledge about food production, safety, and what is healthy. Providing more information on food labels helps the consumer make choices relating to ingredients, diet, health, quality, taste, traceability, safety, sustainability and even ethics of food production.

The wide range of information can lead to information overload, however. The number of health claims, different quality labels, nutrition facts, advice and marketing information, and in some cases misleading and contradictory information, can overwhelm many people and cause confusion even for more educated people (TNS, 2014).

There is a need for a balance between informing shoppers and preventing them making appropriate choices.

Food fraud

Food fraud directly affects the consumer through the supply of substandard, fake or dangerous products and leading to overpayment for the product purchased.

Food fraud, according to the European Parliament in a 2013 report is “a growing trend reflecting a structural weakness within the food chain”.

The risk of fraud is also increasing because of the “complexity and cross-border character of the food chain”.

Contributing factors include the economic crisis, budget cuts for control agencies and “pressure from the retail sector and others to produce food ever more cheaply”.

In the US

In the US, the law is clearer and provides for fines and up to life imprisonment. The Federal Anti-Tampering Act makes it a federal crime to tamper with or taint a consumer product.

Types of food fraud include:

• replacing key ingredients with cheaper alternatives;
• wrongly labelling the animal species used in a meat product;
• incorrectly labelling the weight;
• selling ordinary foods as organic;
• unfairly using origin or animal welfare quality logos;
• labelling aquaculture fish as wild-caught;
• counterfeiting; and
• marketing food past its use-by date.

Top 10 products commonly targeted for food fraud

• olive oil;
• fish;
• organic foods;
• milk;
• grains;
• honey and maple syrup;
• coffee and tea;
• spices, eg saffron and chili powder;
• wine; and
• some types of fruit juice.

Recent cases in Europe have included marketing of ordinary flour as organic flour, battery cage eggs as organic eggs, road salt as food salt, the widely reported selling of horsemeat as beef and the use of methanol-contaminated alcohol in spirits.

Food losses and waste

A study conducted by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology for the FAO (FAO, 2011) found that around one third of all food produced globally, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes per year, is lost or wasted.

In Europe and North America, the losses and waste amounted to 95-115 kg/person/year compared to only 6-11 kg/person/year in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Reasons for food loss

• farmer–buyer sales agreements leading to wasted crops;
• quality standards rejecting misshapen or non-perfect-looking food;
• insufficient purchase planning by consumers;
• expiring best-before dates;
• attitudes of consumers who can afford to waste food.

Food losses waste resources used in food production, including land, fuel, water, fertiliser, pesticides, veterinary medicines, they result in economic losses to farmers and consumers, and generate unnecessary CO2 and methane.

Solving inefficiencies and waste in the supply chain could contribute greatly to food equality and food costs to the consumer.

The extreme example of supply chain food losses is shown by those estimated for North America, where cereals, roost and tubers, fruit and vegetables, and fish and seafood all showed losses around 30% just at the consumer stage, according to FAO. (FAO, 2011)

UK supermarket chain Tesco publishes figures of its own food waste (55,400 tonnes in 2014/15) and studied the losses of a selection of common foods from supply chain to consumer.

Total losses across the whole chain ranged from 60% for bagged salad and 54% for potatoes, to 44% for bread, 20-30% for fruit and down to around 10% for dairy products (Tesco plc).

How to reduce waste

The FAO recommends the following practices for retailers and consumers to reduce waste (FAO, 2014):

• Introduce discount schemes for near-expired products;
• Order only sufficient stock and practice good stock management;
• Practice segregation of wastes for recycling;
• Reduce use of plastics and encourage use of reusable bags for the organized food retail sector; and
• Base portion sizes of servings on actual consumption patterns of consumers.

Bibliography

European Commission. (2016). Food Information to consumers — legislation. Retrieved March 3, 2016, from European Commission.

European Parliament. (2013). Draft report on the food crisis, fraud in the food chain and the control thereof. Brussels: European Parliament.

FAO. (2011). Global food losses and food waste — Extent, causes and prevention. Rome: FAO.

Food and Drug Administration. (2016, February 2). Labeling & Nutrition Guidance Documents & Regulatory Information. Retrieved March 16, 2016, from FDA.

TNS. (2014). Study on the Impact of Food Information on Consumers’ Decision Making. TNS European Behaviour Studies Consortium.

Bibliography

(2004, April 30). Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs. Official Journal of the European Union.

FAO. (2014). Guidance on hygiene and safety in the food retail sector. RAP publication 2014/16. Bangkok: FAO.

FDA. (2007). Guidance for Industry: Retail Food Stores and Food Service Establishments: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance. Retrieved March 4, 2016, from FDA Guidance & Regulation.

Food and Drug Administration. (2006). Managing Food Safety: A Manual for the Voluntary Use of HACCP Principles for Operators of Food Service and Retail Establishments. Maryland: FDA.

Food and Drug Administration. (2013). Food Code. Maryland: FDA.