0.6 Food safety: introduction to incident management

Welcome

Welcome to Introduction to Incident Management .

This learning module is part of the Food Safety Knowledge Network Basic Level Program.

The Basic Level and Intermediate Level Programs were developed through a partnership between the Global Food Safety Initiative and Michigan State University to enhance the technical knowledge of individuals responsible for food safety, especially those working for small or less-developed businesses.

To learn more about the Food Safety Knowledge Network, please visit www.foodsafetyknowledgenetwork.org .

Module overview

Your company’s main objective is to produce safe and legal food. As the person responsible for food safety, it is important that you ensure that the product produced and placed on the market is safe and poses no risk to customers’ health. You must know how to minimize risk and safeguard customers.

It is the legal responsibility of the manufacturer to produce safe food . In many countries there is a legal obligation to have procedures in place to ensure that if a company suspects or is aware that it has placed unsafe food on the market, the company must quickly and effectively withdraw the product from the market and inform the customers. You also must ensure that the product is of the quality demanded by and agreed upon with the customer.

In the event that the quality of the product supplied to a customer could lead to complaints or commercial loss, then these situations must quickly and effectively be managed to make sure your company’s reputation is not compromised and customers are not made ill. A poorly controlled incident management system will have a direct effect on the reputation and commercial well-being of your company.

This Basic Level learning module covers the requirements for effective implementation and maintenance of an incident management system.

The following topics will be discussed:

• system development
• evaluation of incidents
• complaint handling
• product quarantine
• product recall.

Module objectives

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to

• understand the principles and reasons for an effective incident management system
• provide specific knowledge for all product safety issues/complaints
• provide specific knowledge about the significance of product safety issues/ complaints
• provide specific knowledge about the design and maintenance of a quarantine procedure for all products affected within your company
• provide specific knowledge about the design and maintenance of the product recall system.

System development

As the person responsible for food safety within the factory, you must develop procedures to effectively quarantine an unsafe product ensure the training of the employees in the product quarantine system

• monitor staff on the practices involved with the product quarantine system
• recall a product quickly and effectively
• ensure the training of the employees in the product recall system
• monitor employees as they take the steps to recall a product
• develop quidelines to discipline and/or retrain employees in product quarantine practices and product recall procedures.