Food standards of the future
With recent food safety scares concerning the sale of contaminated food and salmonella outbreaks, not to mention the ongoing debate about GM foods, it is no surprise that new standards are being developed to pre-empt such dangers. Consumers' demands must be taken seriously.
The solution is coming in the form of international standard WD 22000, a future food safety management system. It is currently undergoing development and is intended to be an ISO published standard by late 2004. Development on the standard began back in 2001 and since then has steadily continued.
The standard aims to assist food manufacturers when using the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), while keeping the profitability of their products high on the agenda. It is being developed to compliment the existing standard ISO 1516 'Guidelines on the application of ISO 9001:200 for the food and drink industry'.
However, until WD 22000 has been officially published by ISO IRCA has the following advice for those in the industry:
'IRCA is very pleased to see ISO developing a food safety management systems standard and look forward to including it in the IRCA FSMS auditor program in the future. At this stage, the 22000 standard is at a working draft stage and liable to some change before it is issued. Therefore, IRCA will not accept WD 22000 as an acceptable alternative standard for auditor certification criteria or training courses (training courses will continue to be based on ISO 15161 as the key reference document, although courses may include informative content on the ongoing development of 22000). We will review this once the Committe Draft (CD)/Draft International Standard (DIS) versions have been released.'
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