Blurb: Over the past year there has been significantly increased concern, amongst the general public, about food safety. Consumers want an assurance that the food they purchase is safe for consumption. By implementing a Food Safety Management System, organisations can develop effective, compliant food safety practices for ensuring that the food they work with is safe across all points of the Food Supply Chain. This not only streamlines their operations and helps them identify and eliminate potential food contamination, it also upholds their reputation as a safe organisation to purchase food from.

Any organisation that works with food has faced some significant challenges over the past year. Due to the pandemic, there has been an increased amount of awareness regarding food safety, and business trading partners, retailers, and consumers want an assurance that any food they purchase is safe for consumption, untainted, and that there are sufficient, accredited standards in place for ensuring all food the business works with remains safe and contamination-free across all points of the Food Supply Chain. Business’ need to provide this reassurance to clients, stakeholders, and regulatory bodies, to demonstrate their commitment to high food safety standards, and dedication to only working with food that can be proven to be contamination-free.

The ISO 22000:2018 Food Safety Management Standards provide business’ with an internationally recognised set of procedures and policies that they can implement across their entire operations, to work at developing a regulatory compliant Food Safety Management System (FSMS), which helps companies develop high quality practices for keeping the food they work with safe across all aspects of the Food Supply Chain, including manufacturing, preparation, transportation, and retail. An effective FSMS not only helps business’ develop compliant procedures to work at always keeping their food safe, it also allows organisations to publicly demonstrate exactly what steps they have implemented to ensure their practices meet regulatory compliance, thus providing peace of mind to clients, stakeholders, and members of the general public. Some of the benefits business’ stand to gain by implementing the ISO 22000 Standards include:

• Creating an improved, compliant food safety culture across the entire organisation. This includes the development of stronger food safety risk management processes, where potential contamination threats are quickly identified, and then certified procedures are taken to ensure they do not detrimentally impact the operations.
• Ensuring the business can provide food that is proven to be safe, on a regular basis. This not only works at streamlining the operations and ensuring that things run smoothly, but it can also open trading doors between organisations, as certification to these standards acts as a badge of quality for business’, immediately demonstrating that their organisation is safe to work with.
• Providing proven successful management frameworks for developing a safe food culture across an organisation. This is achieved through the implementation of a HACCP plan – Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points – which provides organisations with a clear, straight-forward approach to developing safer food practices, in a logical, sequential manner.

This approach begins by conducting a hazard analysis of the operations, in which potential food hazards are documented, before identifying the Critical Control Points, which are key areas of the operations which, in the event of their failure, could harm customers or the operations, and implementing monitoring procedures to ensure that everything keeps running as it should. In the event of an incident, the HACCP approach sees an organisation develop clear processes to work at mitigating threats, and then thoroughly documenting what steps they have taken, to not only minimise the chances of reoccurrence, but also to provide proof to regulatory bodies about the compliant food safety practices utilised across the operations.

The ISO 22000 Standards have strong requirements that need to be met in order to achieve certification, and by doing so, business’ are demonstrating a commitment to developing clear food safety goals that it is working towards, and then implementing a framework to help them achieve these objectives in a straight-forward manner.

Further, as ISO 22000 is part of the International Organization for Standardization’s wider ISO Business Management Systems Standards, it utilises the same High-Level Structure as other important business standards, including ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems, and the ISO 45001 OH&S Standards. This means that there is compatibility between different standards, and that if your organisation is already certified to an existing ISO Standard, then ISO 22000 can easily be implemented across your organisation.

What the ISO 22000 Standards can do for your business

By implementing these standards, business’ not only work at developing stronger, compliant food safety practices, they also demonstrate a commitment to high safety practices, which upholds their reputation as a safe trading partner, and ethical organisation. By certifying to these standards, organisations stand to increase their overall profit margin, reduce expenditure, and be provided with a competitive advantage. By proving their work practices meet the requirements set out in these standards, business’ are demonstrating that they are willing to go above-and-beyond to demonstrate their commitment to safety. This kind of reassurance does a lot to uphold the reputation of an organisation, and demonstrate that it is not only committed to high food safety practices, but that it takes its responsibilities seriously, and is doing everything to ensure that the food it works with only does what it is supposed to do – provide nourishment, or be a tasty treat.

If you would like to know more about how the ISO 22000 Standards could be implemented across your organisation to help it develop an effective FSMS that not meets regulatory standards, but also streamlines operations, identifies and mitigates potential food hazards, and upholds the overall reputation of the organisation as a safe company to work with, then please give Anitech’s safety consultants a call today on 1300 802 163. By telling them about your operations, including its size and scope, what food it works with, and some of the potential food safety challenges it faces, they will be able to explain to you how these standards could be tailored to your organisation, to help keep it safe and compliant, and maintain its reputation as a company committed to high quality standards. Wouldn’t you agree that that sounds like an appetising premise?

Please click here to read more about some of the benefits that business’ can gain by implementing an effective Food Safety Management System.