Quality Control

Food Safety

Food safety is a term that encompasses methods used to minimise risk to the safety and integrity of food. The food business in Australia now focuses more than ever on issues associated with food safety, particularly the demand for the food free from microbiological hazards. Food Standards Australia and New Zealand develops food standards in Australia to cover the whole of the food supply chain from paddock to plate to maintain a safe food supply in both food manufacturing industry and primary producers.

What is HACCP?

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Control Point. It is a risk management tool used by food companies to identify where things can go wrong and to prevent problems from occurring.

THERE ARE SEVEN KEY STEPS TO THE SYSTEM
Conduct a hazard analysis to identify potential hazards which could occur in the food production process. Identify the critical control points. There are points in the process where potential hazards can be controlled and monitored. Establish the critical limits for the process at each critical control point. Establish ways to monitor the critical control points. This is to ensure targets are being met.	Determine corrective action to be taken if monitoring indicates a critical control point is not within its established limits. Establish record keeping procedures to demonstrate that the process is working properly. Records should document critical control point monitoring, verification activities and deviation records. Establish procedures for verifying that the HACCP system is working properly. Verification procedures may include reviewing the HACCP plan, critical control point records and microbiological testing.
Stay out of the Danger Zone The key to recognising the concept of food safety is in understanding how bacteria work. There are two types of bacteria - those that are useful and those that are harmful. Useful bacteria are nature's cleaners which break down garbage and dead vegetation. Harmful bacteria are those that cause illness or poisoning and are known as pathogens i.e. Salmonella, some strains of E. coli, Staphylococcus Aureus and Listeria Monocytogenes are some of the more common pathogens. Bacteria require nourishment, water and the right temperature to survive. Most bacteria will not multiply under temperatures of less than 5C and only a few survive temperatures of greater that 74C. The danger zone for bacteria growth is between 5C and 60C with optimum temperature for growth between 20C and 45C.	How fast do bacteria grow? When given the right food at the right temperature (danger zone) the food poisoning bacteria will grow very rapidly. Bacteria split in half so in optimum conditions one becomes two in about 20 minutes. In this way, one single bacteria in food can be 4,000 in only 4 hours and over 2 million in 7 hours. This diagram shows how quickly one food bacteria can become many.