In the United States, just like in any other country, it is manufacturers’ responsibility to produce fairly safe products. In order to produce such products, manufacturers are to carefully examine their product to identify the hazards connected to it. The production standard for a sufficiently safe product includes manufacturers being aware of known and detectable hazards associated with their product to control them so that people are not injured and property is not damaged. According to Wogalter (2018), hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) is a reasonable systematic approach aimed at eliminating or minimizing various hazards and ensuring food safety, with business resources centered on the most relevant areas for a particular organization. The HACCP methodology is designed to identify potential food safety threats and to apply checks and techniques to control these threats to help warrant safe food production.
Food hazard analysis for foreign bodies begins with identifying the successive stages of the process, from raw and packaging materials to the shipment, distribution and end-use of the product. Swainson (2019) reports that these stages can be summarized in a flow diagram, after which each one is considered separately, with several questions addressed:
- Could any extraneous matter be transported from the previous stage into this one?
- At this stage, could any ingredient added include extraneous matter?
- At this stage, could any packaging material used introduce extraneous matter?
- At this stage, could extraneous matter infiltrate the product from staff, machinery, or the environment?
The answers to these questions are cataloged for each stage and the prevention/detection and disposal options are considered. Wogalter (2018) notes that actions for the event of a threat are cataloged as well, and, once these are decided upon, they are to be installed, with means of monitoring to secure their effective functioning.
When it comes to hazard analysis problems, the most common one determined by practitioners in both SME sectors and in larger organizations was the frequent confusion of quality issues with safety issues. As per Swainson (2019), this can be addressed by establishing clear objectives when beginning the HACCP program, at the ‘terms of reference’ stage, where two key issues need to be clarified:
- Will the HACCP study cover only product safety hazards, or quality issues as well?
- Which hazard group will be considered (for instance, microbiological and/or chemical and/or physical hazards for safety research)?
However, even where these questions are answered, research teams still sometimes have difficulties in choosing specific hazards to be considered in the course of the study. This is why it is essential for each member of a research team to have sufficient skills and experience in the field. If such skills are lacking, a research team might want to draw on outside experts to assist, or use relevant published sources on significant hazards on the Internet.
In terms of the basic risk assessment tools, many of these can be used to support hazard analysis decisions. For one, the risk matrix, which determines the level of risk by assigning numeric values to categories of probability and impact, lets one to calculate the risks for each value combination. In turn, it allows for putting a quantitative risk value for a specific hazard. Then there is the decision tree: it presents a number of choices expanding into different outcomes. Food industry specialists might use it to identify when hazards require a Critical Control Point. Finally, Failure Modes and Effect Analysis describes all the ways in which a product, design, or process can fail by placing its steps on separate rows, which helps determine failures, their causes, and required actions.
References
Swainson, M. (2019). Product control and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) considerations. In Swainson’s handbook of technical and quality management for the food manufacturing sector, Elsevier Science, 557-582
Wogalter, M. S. (2018). Hazard analysis and hazard-control hierarchy. In Forensic human factors and ergonomics: Case studies and analyses, CRC Press, 17-32