Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (VPH 16-17)

What is high likelihood?

High likelihood = virtually certain to occur.

What is low likelihood?

Low likelihood = small chance of occurring, likely to occur only in the long term.

What is medium likelihood?

Medium likelihood = simply not the other two.

How should corrective action be established?

Quarantine product since last good check (the past). Re-establish control / correction (the present). Investigate the reason for failure and upgrade systems accordingly (the future).

What is review for HACCP?

Scheduled (minimum annually). Following internal changes (line alteration, altered pre-requisite programme, etc.). Following external changes (new legislation, new information on hazards, following external audit, etc.).

What is low impact?

= only minor effect or "first aid" (e.g. very mild symptoms of disease, etc.)

What is high impact?

= potentially catastrophic effect or accident (e.g. death, hospitalization, etc.)

What is medium impact?

= simply not the other two (e.g. symptoms of disease with rest at home, etc.)

What is HACCP?

A system which identifies, evaluates and controls hazards which are significant for food safety. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point

What are examples of CCPs in red meat abattoirs?

Examples of CCPs in red meat abattoirs: -Intake of animals (i.e. cleanliness). -FBO carcase inspection point. -Temperature controls in chillers.

What is exposure assessment?

Exposure Assessment (EA): • The qualitative and/or quantitative evaluation of the likely intake of biological, chemical, and physical agents via food as well as exposures from other sources if relevant. • Risk Attribution: - Source (from meat products) - Reservoir (animals reservoir of infection) - Exposure (from the environment or consumers' behaviour)

What is food safety risk?

Food Safety Risk: a function of the probability of an adverse health effect and the severity of that effect consequential to a hazard present in our food

What does the food safety management system rely on?

HACCP based procedure: -Robust pre-requisites + HACCP = HACCP based food safety management systems

What are the 4 steps of a risk assessment?

Hazard identification Hazard characterisation Exposure Assessment Risk Characterisation

What are the levels of likelihood?

High Low Medium

What are the levels of impact?

High impact Low impact Medium impact

What are the basic hazard control points?

Pre-requisite: design and construction of equipment and facilities Prerequisite: systems and procedures, SOPs Whole idea is to target resources in the areas critical to maintainting food safety WITHOUT PREREQUISITES, HACCP WOULD NOT WORK!!

What are the prerequisites for the food safety management system?

Pre-requisites: The control measures that provide the basic environmental and operating conditions in a food operation that are necessary for the production of safe and wholesome food. • Structure and Maintenance • Water Quality • Cleaning • Pest control • Personal Health & Hygiene • Training • Temperature controls • Suppliers and raw materials • Waste and ABP Management • Wrapping and packing • Transport hygiene • Traceability and recall • Calibration • Document controls

What are the important components of risk analysis?

Risk assessment -hazard identification -hazard characterization -exposure assessment -risk characterisation

What are the important risk analasis components for the OIE in relation to hazard identification?

Risk assessment -release assessment -exposure assessment -consequence assessment -risk estimation

What is the official food control?

This is what Official Veterinarians working for the Food Standards Agency do: "....a mandatory regulatory activity of enforcement by national or local authorities to provide consumer protection and ensure that all foods during production, handling, storage, processing, and distribution are safe, wholesome and fit for human consumption; conform to safety and quality requirements; and are honestly and accurately labelled as prescribed by law."

What are likelihood factors?

(epidemiology, experience, knowledge of the process, people, site...).

What is a qualitative risk assessment?

- A risk assessment based on data which, while forming an inadequate basis for numerical risk estimations, when conditioned by prior expert knowledge and identification of attendant uncertainties permits risk ranking or separation into descriptive categories of risk.

What does the food chain include the production of?

- Feedstuff, - Materials intended to come into contact with food or raw materials, - Etc...

What is hazard identification?

- Reasonably and foreseeable hazards. - Specific hazards. - Examples of plant specificity. - Consider shift in hazards of public health significance.

What is residual risk?

- Risk left behind after we've gone as far as we can go or after we've gone as far as we are prepared to go. - Must act until the risk is either eliminated or the residual risk is deemed tolerable.

What are the seven HACCP Principles?

1. Conduct a Hazard Analysis. 2. Identify the Critical Control Points (CCPs). 3. Establish Critical Limits. 4. Establish a Monitoring System. 5. Establish a Corrective Action System. 6. Establish a Verification System. 7. Establish Documents concerning all procedures (SOPs) and Records.

What are potential hazard types?

Biological Chemical Physical Allergenic ... in or condition of food or feed with the potential to cause an adverse health effect to the consumer or categories of consumers.

What is food security?

Concept that food is: • Produced in a sustainable way, • Accessible to all (affordable), • Available at all times (stability), • Wholesome (balanced diet, nutritious and safe), • Ethically produced (e.g. not using slavery / children as a workforce, fair trade, etc...)

When was HACCP developed?

Developed by NASA and Pillsbury for astronauts in 1960s and launched in 1971. Internationally recognised as the most effective way to maximise food safety.

How should control measures for hazards be identified?

Identify control measures that can be used to prevent, reduce or eliminate a food safety hazard to an acceptable level. - i.e. using the pre-requisite programme and SOPs. Conduct risk analysis to determine which hazards are of such a nature that control measures are not robust enough to prevent or reduce them to an acceptable level. - Any step of production, and only this step, that cannot be adequately controlled by control measures is identified as a Critical Control Point!!

How should hazards be identified?

Identify hazards at each step of production: - (PIGS = Presence, Introduction, Growth, Survival).

How has the food supply chain changed over the last 40-50 year?

In the past 40 to 50 years dramatic changes happened in food production and commercialisation going from a local economy to globalisation. - Small business survival at risk. - Traditionally made products tend to disappear. - Need for flexibility in the legislation with a focus on food safety risk assessment. - Loss of connection / trust between producers and consumers. - Increased economic uncertainty (Blockchain) - While the food chain is ever expanding, times and distances for production and commercialisation (trade) are shrinking.

What type of monitoring should occur at CCPs?

• A planned sequence of observations or measurements to assess whether a CCP is under control or to assess whether control measures are operating as intended. • Trend analysis is a key component to make sure that potential problems are identified before they became food safety issues (prevention).

What are the limitations of HACCP?

• Commitment. • High level of training of non-professional food handlers. • Fully and equally understood by food processors and inspectors: - Experts will differ as to whether a given step is a CCP. • Consumers must carry on with good hygiene practice in storing and handling food

What is food safety?

• Concept that food will not cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use.

Why should we use HACCP?

• Control is transferred from end-product testing to monitoring at critical control points along the production line. • Structured preventative system rather than reactive being able to identify issues before unsafe product is on the market (fewer food poisoning outbreaks / no need for recall of products). • Operations controlled by operatives working on the production line and involve all level of staff. • Control becomes cheaper: - Less testing. - No need to quarantine / recall and destroy massive amount of product. • Forms part of a due diligence defence for food producers. • Traditional Meat Inspection (MI) aimed at detecting classical (with visible lesions) foodborne disease (e.g. Tuberculosis, Cysticercosis, etc...). • Traditional MI fails to identify contamination of foods with foodborne pathogens (e.g. Campylobacter, Salmonella or E. coli). • Flexibility to adapt to most of the type of businesses.

What are the drawbacks of the traditional methods in food chains?

• Control was reactive focusing on end-product testing. • Sample testing was extensive and expensive. • Controls were remote and not completed by workers doing the job on the line. • Most of the time consumers will suffer food poisoning outbreaks before the industry realised their product was unsafe. • Extensive and expensive recall of products. • Difficult to identify the step/s of production failing controls and hazards involved.

What are critical limits and how are they established?

• Critical limits are established to determine whether a CCP remains in control. • If a critical limit is exceeded or violated, the products affected are deemed to be potentially unsafe. • Measurable / observable. • Must meet minimum legal requirements.

What are the concerns related to food safety?

• Food safety is a major concern of all food industries. • Food borne illness present major problems both in health and economic terms for any government authorities. • Legislation require all food businesses to demonstrate a commitment to food safety through a "Food Safety Strategy" to ensure the production of and trading in safe food of a high quality.

What are the take home messages?

• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a legal requirement for the food industry. • HACCP is based on risk analysis (risk assessment, management and communication). • Based on the result of the risk assessment, HACCP procedures are designed and implemented to guarantee a high standard of protection of consumers from foodborne hazards.

What is Hazard Identification?

• Is the process of identifying hazards in order to plan for, avoid, or mitigate their impacts. - Aetiology - Epidemiology - Pathogenicity

What is verification?

• Obtaining objective evidence that elements of the HACCP plan are effective. - "Am I doing what I say and can I prove it?" • External and/or internal audits (See Lecture PH18 and 19). • Microbiological verification (See Lecture PH5 and 6)

Why is food quality important?

• Quality is a very important issue for consumers and food producers of goods and services: - Consumers expectation, - Safety is paramount

What does food quality mean?

• Quality means that a product or service is of a defined characteristic and is fit for its intended purpose.

What is a quantitative risk assessment?

• Quantitative Risk Assessment: - A risk assessment that provides numerical expressions of risk and indication of the attendant uncertainties: Data Collection: - Ad-hoc case-control study - Analysis of data from surveillance Indication of attendant uncertainties using of statistical and mathematical models to determine causation or association: - Statistical models (e.g. c2 / p-values) - Deterministic and Stochastic mathematical models (e.g. Bayesian, Monte Carlo simulations)

What is risk communication?

• Risk communication: Interactive exchange of information and opinion throughout the risk analysis process as regards hazards and risks, risk-related factors and risk perceptions, among all interested parties, including the explanation of risk assessment findings and the basis of risk management decisions

What are the independent components of risk?

• Risk has two independent components: -Impact -Likelihood -Risk (X) = Impact (Z) + Likelihood (Y)

What is risk management?

• Risk management: The process of weighing policy alternatives in consultation with interested parties, considering risk assessment and other legitimate factors to select the most appropriate preventive and control options

What is a flow diagram for HACCP?

• Schematic and systematic presentation of the sequence and interactions of steps. • Include addition of ingredients. • Consider feedback loops. • Validate the diagram once complete and modify as necessary.

What is the food chain?

• Sequence of the stages and operations involved in the production, processing, distribution, storage and handling of a food and its ingredients, from primary production to consumption.

What is a critical control point?

• Step at which control measures are not robust enough to control a food safety hazard and therefore more stringent interventions should be applied and is essential to prevent or eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level

How do you TRAP risk?

• TRAP - Terminate: stop activity where it is too risky and not part of core activities. - Reduce: either impact or likelihood or both. - Accept: this is what we are. - Pass-on: outsource or insure.

What are the key legislations/guides related to food safety/HACCP?

• The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations (UN) are joint codex sponsors of Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) (1997). • The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is the UK codex entry point. • Regulation EC 852/2004, Article 5.1: - " Food business operators shall put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure or procedures based on the HACCP principles" • The FSA Meat Industry Guide (MIG).

What is Hazard characterisation?

• The qualitative and or quantitative evaluation of the nature of the adverse health effects associated with the biological, chemical and physical agents which may be present in food. - Dose-Response Assessment (chemical hazards). - Minimum Infectious Dose (biological hazards).

What is risk characterisation?

• The qualitative or quantitative estimation, including attendant uncertainties, of the probability of occurrence and severity of known or potential adverse health effect based on HI, HC and EA.