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Title: What standards and regulations affect a food and beverage laboratory?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date:

Introduction

This brief topical article will examine the standards, regulations, and other factors globally influencing not only the demand for food and beverage laboratories, but also how they conduct their activities.


Globally recognized food safety standards

Implementing and maintaining conformance to internationally recognized and benchmarked food safety standards benefit the food and beverage organization in a number of ways[1][2]:

  • It increases customer confidence through the organization's audited certification to the standard, taking the place of customers' own auditing methods to ensure quality and authenticity, in turn reducing time and costs.
  • It drives organizations to better monitor their activities for non-conformities, identify root causes, and develop preventative controls, while clearly reporting such efforts to customers, further reducing the need for customer audits.
  • It better ensures a rigorous and comprehensive approach to product safety, quality, integrity, and legality, in many cases meeting or exceeding local, state, federal, and/or international legislative requirements.
  • It drives organizations to better vet their suppliers and service providers for meeting required food safety management practices.
  • It enables organizations to better demonstrate auditable compliance with modern food safety management practices.
  • It allows organizations to limit product recalls, reduce customer complaints, and better protect their brand.

British Retail Consortium (BRC) Global Standard for Food Safety (GSFS)

In 1998, the British Retail Consortium (BRD) published the first edition of its Global Standard for Food Safety (GSFS), going on to becoming an internationally recognized standard of best practices in food manufacturing, storage, and distribution, and the first food safety standard to be recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). The standard covers stakeholder buy-in on continual improvement, food safety plan development, food quality management system development, manufacturing and storage site standardization, product and process control, personnel management, risk management, and trade product management.[1][2][3][4] The standard is implemented by an organization through gap assessment, documentation development, consultation and assessment, internal auditing, and resolving non-conformances to the standard.[2]

Codex Alimentarius

The Codex Alimentarius is a collection of internationally recognized set of food and feed standards and guidelines developed as a joint venture between the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).[3] The Codex "is intended to guide and promote the elaboration and establishment of definitions and requirements for foods to assist in their harmonization and in doing so to facilitate international trade."[5] Scope of the standards is broad, covering food hygiene; food additives and contaminants, including pesticides and drugs; packaging and labelling; sampling and analysis methods; and import and export inspection and certification.[5] It's not unusual for governments to approach the FAO seek help with harmonizing national legal frameworks of food safety with the Codex Alimentarius.[6] Among the Codex, some of the more broadly useful standards include General Principles of Food Hygiene (CXC 1-1969)[7], General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Food and Feed (CXS 193-1995), and General Methods of Analysis for Contaminants (CXS 228-2001).[8]

Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)

The GFSI is a collection of private organizations that have developed a set of benchmarking requirements for improving food safety management programs, with a goal of making them balanced enough to be broadly applicable while remaining relevant to different countries and regions of the world.[3] Previously known as the GFSI Guidance Document[9], the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements act as a set of criteria and professional framework for food safety management programs to fulfill, formally allowing an organization to be recognized and certified by the GFSI. Certification to the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements "demonstrates an organization’s serious commitment to food safety to customers and potential customers across the world."[3] An organization seeks out a third-party certification program owner (CPO) and undergoes the auditing process, which is driven and supported by the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements.[10] GFSI is also responsible for ensuring CPOs and certification bodies meet the necessary requirements.

Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP)

The hazard analysis and critical control points or HACCP system has been adopted and integrated in various ways over the years[11], but at its core, the system directs organizations to focus on key areas or "critical control points" (CCPs) of vulnerability and hazard within the production process and mitigate their impact on overall food safety.[3] Though the seeds of HACCP go back to the 1970s, it wasn't until the mid-1990s that it began finding its way into formal regulatory structures in the United States, first codified as 9 CFR Parts 304, 308, 310, 320, 327, 381, 416, and 417 in July 1996.[11][12] HACCP also found its way into other standards benchmarked by the GFSI.[11] The concept of HACCP has perhaps changed slightly over the years, but the main principles remain[3]:

  1. Conduct a hazard analysis.
  2. Identify CCPs.
  3. Establish critical limits for those CCPs.
  4. Establish monitoring procedures for those CCPs.
  5. Establish corrective action for failed limits.
  6. Establish verification procedures.
  7. Establish record keeping and documentation procedures.

International Featured Standards (IFS)

The IFS is made up of a group of eight food and non-food standards, covering various processes along the food supply chain. IFS Management, who is responsible for the standards, notes that "IFS does not specify what these processes must look like but merely provides a risk-based assessment"[13] or "uniform evaluation system"[3] for them. Organizations such as food manufacturers and logistics providers can certify to the standards. Some of the more relevant to food and beverage laboratories include IFS Food (for food manufacturers), IFS Global Markets Food (for food retailers), IFS PACsecure 2 (for packaging manufactures), and IFS Global Markets PACsecure (for packaging suppliers).[14]

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 22000

The ISO 22000 series of standards addresses how a food safety management system should be set up and operated, and how organizations can be certified to the standard by a third-party auditor.[15] ISO 22000 is based off the ISO 9000 family of quality management system standards and, like other standards, incorporates elements of HACCP.[11] The standard claims to be advantaged compared to other standards due to its comprehensive applicability across an entire organization, and across the entire food chain.[16] Major standards applicable to manufacturers with laboratories include:

  • ISO/TS 22002-1:2009 Prerequisite programmes on food safety — Part 1: Food manufacturing[17]
  • ISO/TS 22002-4:2013 Prerequisite programmes on food safety — Part 4: Food packaging manufacturing[18]
  • ISO/TS 22002-6:2016 Prerequisite programmes on food safety — Part 6: Feed and animal food production[19]

Safe Quality Food (SQF) Program

The SQF Program, headlined by the SQF Institute and recognized by the GFSI, is a food "safety plus quality" management certification mechanism that covers the food supply chain from farm to fork.[3] Those who wish to be certified to SQF must comply with SQF Code, which covers a variety of topics, from aquaculture and farming to food packaging and food and feed manufacturing.[20] Like other standards, the organization wanting to be accredited finds a certified third-party auditor to administer program certification.


Regulations and laws around the world

Food Safety Act 1990 and Food Standards Act 1999 - United Kingdom

The Food Safety Act of 1990 and Food Standards Act of 1999 represent the core of food safety regulation in the United Kingdom, though there are other pieces of legislation that also have an impact.[21][22] The Food Safety Act of 1990 encourages entities to "not include anything in food, remove anything from food, or treat food in any way which means it would be damaging to the health of people eating it"; serve or sell food that is of a quality that "consumers would expect"; and ensure food is labeled, advertised, and presented clearly and truthfully.[21][22] The Food Standards Act of 1999 later created the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) "to protect public health from risks which may arise in connection with the consumption of food (including risks caused by the way in which it is produced or supplied) and otherwise to protect the interests of consumers in relation to food."[23] One of the ways the FSA does this is through enforcing food safety regulation at the local level, including within food production facilities, as well as setting ingredient and nutrition labelling policy.[24] Regulations and guidance from the FSA address not only labelling but also radioactivity monitoring, meat processing, manure management, Salmonella testing, temperature control, dairy hygiene, and more.[25]

Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 - India

This act was enacted in 2006 to both consolidate existing food-related law and to establish the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which develops regulations and standards of practice for the manufacture, storage, distribution, and packaging of food.[26][27] However, an audit of FSSAI by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in December 2017 revealed some deficiencies in the FSSAI's activities, including an overall "low quality" of food testing laboratories in the country.[26] Nonetheless, the FSSAI remains the primary regulatory watchdog, developing standards and guidelines for food and enforcing those standards. This includes setting limits for food additives, contaminants, pesticides, drugs, heavy metals, and more, as well as defining quality control mechanisms, accreditation requirements, sampling and analytical techniques, and more.[27]

Food Safety Law - China

Food Safety Law

Food Sanitation Act and Food Safety Basic Act - Japan

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) - United States

Food Safety Modernization Act

General Food Law Regulation (GFLR) - European Union

https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/general-food-law_en

Safe Foods for Canadians Act (SFCA) - Canada


Other influencing factors

Good manufacturing practice (GMP)

Good manufacturing practice


Conclusion

This brief topical article sought to answer "what standards and regulations affect a food and beverage laboratory?" It notes that

References

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  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "BRCGS - British Retail Consortium Global Standard" (PDF). Perry Johnson Food Safety Consulting, Inc. April 2020. https://www.pjfsc.com/Downloads/BRC-Overview.pdf. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "Food Safety and Quality Regulations: A Guide to Global Standards" (PDF). Eagle Product Inspection. May 2019. https://vertassets.blob.core.windows.net/download/45fe7af4/45fe7af4-0500-4163-bd2b-5dd34e824bfd/eagle_wp_food_safetyquality_regulations_guide_a4_en.pdf. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
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  7. "Codes of Practice". Codex Alimentarius. Food and Agricultural Organization. 2022. https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/codex-texts/codes-of-practice/en/. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
  8. "Contaminants". Codex Alimentarius. Food and Agricultural Organization. 2022. https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/thematic-areas/contaminants/en/. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
  9. "GFSI Releases New Edition of Benchmarking Requirements". Global Food Safety Initiative. 28 February 2017. https://mygfsi.com/press_releases/gfsi-releases-new-edition-of-benchmarking-requirements/. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
  10. "Certification". Global Food Safety Initiative. 2022. https://mygfsi.com/how-to-implement/certification/. Retrieved 10 November 2022. 
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Weinroth, Margaret D; Belk, Aeriel D; Belk, Keith E (9 November 2018). "History, development, and current status of food safety systems worldwide" (in en). Animal Frontiers 8 (4): 9–15. doi:10.1093/af/vfy016. ISSN 2160-6056. PMC PMC6951898. PMID 32002225. https://academic.oup.com/af/article/8/4/9/5087923. 
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