0.4 Food safety: introduction to control of food hazards- general  (Page 2/6)

Since the responsibility for food safety rests with you, direct verification of systems is extremely important for Basic Level requirements. You should personally monitor activities on a regular basis and record your findings.

Food safety

When considering food safety, you must understand the difference between quality and safety.

Food Safety (Codex Standards)

Assurance that food will not cause harm when prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use.

Food safety refers to attributes that cannot be directly observed, but instead require laboratory procedures for their measurement. These procedures include microbiological techniques or chemical analysis.

Food quality refers to attributes that can be readily observed by sight, smell, or simple measurement (such as color or condition). Food quality is easier to assess than food safety.

Definition of a food safety hazard

Food Safety Hazard (Codex Standards)

A biological, chemical or physical agent in, or condition of, food with the potential to cause an adverse health effect.

Food safety hazards include bacteria, viruses, parasites, hazardous chemicals, and foreign materials that can cause an adverse health effect to a consumer.

Food safety hazards

In food safety management systems, hazards refer to conditions or contaminants in foods that can cause illness or injury.

It is important to understand that hazards do not refer to undesirable conditions or contaminants such as

• presence of insects
• spoilage
• hair or dirt
• violations of regulatory food standards not directly related to safety.

Biological hazards

There are a number of different types of biological hazards that can be present within food. These are typically microorganisms and include

• bacteria
• viruses
• parasites.

Control points for biological hazards must be identified during the process and storage of food products. This can be done by using hazard analysis techniques.

Practical food microbiology

Microorganisms are small, living uni-cellular or multi-cellular organisms. They include bacteria, viruses, yeasts, molds, and parasites. These are not all necessarily bad for humans; in fact, many can be beneficial to humans.

There are different types of microorganisms:

• helpful
• spoilage
• disease causing – pathogenic.

Helpful microorganisms

Helpful microorganisms can be added to foods or are found naturally in them.

In many cases, microorganisms are used in foods to help with preservation but can also be added to create unique flavors and textures.

Foods such sauerkraut and pickles utilize fermentation as a preservation process and use microorganisms to carry out this fermentation process. Other foods such as bread use fermentation as an essential part of their production.

Spoilage microorganisms

Spoilage microorganisms affect the quality of the product, not necessarily the safety of the food. It is usually very easy to indentify when a food product is affected by spoilage, by look or taste. There can be discoloration on fruit, molds on bread, or milk that tastes sour.

In some cases spoilage microorganisms can affect the safety of products. An example is that some fruits can decay by a mold called penicillium expansum . This mold produces a toxin that can affect humans.