FOOD SAFETY SUPPLEMENT: MANAGEMENT APPROACHES


FOOD SAFETY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE


Ricardo F. Luna Senior Quality Specialist, Nestec SA


Past: Food safety is a relatively modern topic that arose during the last few years, in particular after World War II. The publication ‘50 Years in the European Union’1


is


a good summary of the main issues on food safety. Some of these issues had already been highlighted by the mishandling of food or lack of hygienic practices (e.g. Salmonella in poultry) but other ones, such as BSE (Mad Cow Disease) were a discovery of new feeding practices. Despite that most of the preservation systems and research were done during the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. pasteurisation, reduction of pH and/or aw


, drying processes, retorting), the real origin was unclear.


The behaviour of some microorganisms, availability of certain equipment, mathematical models, hygienic design and other resources were unknown or partially available. In ancient times (even before World War I), lack of safe water, medicines and basic hygienic conditions caused the deaths of millions of people (e.g. Cholera2


, dysentery3 , typhus4 , Black Death).


A simple hand washing practice, proper cooking of foods or heating utensils could save thousands of lives. However, most of the discoveries came later on. It is very easy to say


newfood Volume 15| Issue 1 | 2012


today what could be done better yesterday, but we have to recognise that there was limited information and knowledge at that time, and one typical example was the Black Death or


14


bubonic plague: the source was attributed to the rats, but later on, fleas were identified. Antibiotic therapy was also discovered (by chance) during the 20th century, and so on. Present: There are different areas that are


improving the food safety approach in the food industry, governments, health institutes, public organisations as well as consumer’s activities. In general, the information is widespread in simple formats (one page brochures, with basic messages) in well detailed documents prepared by global organisations, such as Codex Alimentarius5


, WHO6 , EFSA7 , FDA8 , FSIS9


and many others. For the support of these documents, several certifications were developed in order to boost these general requirements of good manufacturing and hygiene practices (also referred as prerequisites)


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18