Well over 90% of operators in the wider food industry are small businesses and, almost universally, they say they have problems in striving for HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points).
/~How to make HACCP more widely applied and applicable to smaller businesses was the subject of a presentation by Prof Eunice Taylor of the International Centre for HACCP Innovation at Salford University, Britain, at the recent SA Assoc for Food Science and Technology (SAAFoST) biennial congress.
Her address is highly relevant for the SA food industry because a simpler form of HACCP will have to be found, particularly for the catering industry, in order to face the challenges of the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament in SA.
Later, this simpler HACCP could be extended to the food processing sector.
Said Taylor: "We are generally using a method (conventional HACCP, such as is applied in SA - editor) which suits 3% of the industry."
But she described a British government-backed system which she has been involved in developing over the past five years which allows smaller businesses (in catering and food service) to apply HACCP in a non-technological and integrated way. In Britain there was previously no HACCP application by small businesses. South Africa
SA is currently in approximately the same position that Britain was before application of the "Salford system".
Smaller companies in catering, restaurants and food manufacturing everywhere generally do not apply HACCP because it is complex, time-consuming and generally involves the employment of expensive consultants for long periods.
However, Dr Lucia Anelich, manager of SA's Food Safety Initiative (FSI), says she is examining the need to institute, in time for the 2010 World Cup, a system of which is likely to be based on the Salford system
Anelich has worked with Taylor on a number of other projects related to small business HACCP before.
Anelich says because of the closeness of the 2010 World Cup, this project would have to be initiated early in 2008 and the catering/food service industry would be the first target.
"We will not look at the food processing sector initially, but it is a real possibility later. And eventually, the system could be applied by food companies of all types - it is basically applicable to smaller manufacturers as well as bigger manufacturers, with some adaptations, if they want to have a simple rather than a complex system."
(A number of medium and larger SA companies have indicated that the lack of HACCP application by smaller companies will be advantageous for them in future, as HACCP is increasingly required by government and retailers. They have said that this should reduce worrisome competition for them - editor).
In Europe (including Britain) according to January 2006 EU Regulations, all food businesses must phase in systems based on the seven HACCP principles.
Taylor says that in Britain and Europe there is no ''industry of HACCP consultants'' because the state provides most of the materials and backup required for HACCP application, and generally local authorities inspect. She says that consultants have an interest in making HACCP more complex.
However, if a simpler system of HACCP were to become available in SA, this might reduce the role of HACCP consultants because, although less consultant time would be spent on each HACCP project, there would be more projects because more smaller companies would embark on them.
There is no chance for the moment that the SA government will provide the kind of back-up and inspection which European governments provide.
Neither does the FSI have those resources. Anelich says once a simpler system is implemented in SA, the FSI would probably act as a consultant, but that it would look to take on partners from the private consulting industry as well as catering/hospitality bodies.
Anelich says as the Salford system is not yet designed for manufacturing companies, it would have to be extended, rewritten and tweaked for them. However that would not be a major hurdle.
Anelich says the Salford system is ''genuine HACCP'' as it includes the seven principles of HACCP.
"What we tend to forget, is that it is not about the system itself, but rather about how the system can be best utilised with the all-important objective to ensure safe food.
''In SA, many companies believe that the 12 steps of Codex Alimentarius are required for HACCP, but in fact they are not cast in stone and therefore not essential to HACCP.''
Taylor agrees. She says Codex has long been addressing the problems of small businesses. But the ''classical method'' of HACCP - the 12 steps - is not appropriate for most small businesses. Barriers
In her SAAFoST address, Taylor said in 2001 the British government decided it would tackle this problem, starting with the food service/hospitality industry.
Initially the British government surveyed other countries to find out whether they had done such an exercise. It was found that there was no such thing - HACCP was nowhere in the world applied systematically in the hospitality industry.
Using Taylor, who was seconded to the project, and her Salford University centre, they then began investigating the situation in Britain.
Said Taylor: "We realised that a typical restaurant is a complex business. There are hundreds of inputs and outputs."
"This is not about science but management. The principles of HACCP are good but it is difficult to apply in such small, complex businesses. So we set about trying to do something different. In bigger businesses, HACCP application is done by multi-disciplinary teams.
"The project involved a lot of piloting, evaluation and review. Evaluation involved taking data in the beginning and reviewing it periodically throughout. Fifty businesses were selected at random - we did not just want the good businesses and we came up with plenty of bad businesses. We used attractive, blonde ladies to persuade the business owners to participate.
"A key factor was that the civil servant who headed the project knew nothing about HACCP. He demanded that we take the jargon out, and what a difference that made!
"On prerequisite programmes he said, 'take them out and make it integrated'. In the normal HACCP systems, prerequisite programmes refer to general HACCP hazards and HACCP refers to specific hazards. We merged them.
"We did not allow any HACCP jargon, any microbiological jargon, or the need for expert knowledge (we built expert knowledge into the system). For this system, you do not need to know how to spell staphylococcus.
"None of these solutions came easily. The project was underpinned by the proposition that some things are more important than others. Whereas big companies say everything is important, the project put the priority on microbiological risk."
Eventually a panel for design of the system was formed, led by restaurateurs.
There have been two sub-system outputs:
Menu Safe for all sectors - which is the full version.
Safer Foods Better Business - for really small businesses, which has been implemented in 4,000 businesses in Britain so far.
Documentation
There are two paper elements: the documentation of safe working methods (which needed more detail than, for instance, "cook until well done"), and record-keeping via a diary.
This basically amounts to:
A set of working procedures for all processes in the kitchen that impact on food safety.
Designed-in standard operating procedures, (SOPs), called Safe Methods.
A modular approach.
So far, 40 Safe Methods (recipes) for the documentation of HACCP have been formulated. There are still many gaps - for instance, a Safe Method has not yet been done for sushi because there are not many sushi restaurants in Britain.
"For instance, we asked how to do cooked chicken and can we write it down? We identified the most common processes. Interestingly most chefs were doing the same things but they didn't share information and noone knew what best practices were.
"The best practices we researched were submitted to the 200 microbiological experts in the Food Standards Agency (FSA) of Britain, who decided whether they were safe and acceptable or not.
"We also spent a lot of time formulating for record-keeping. But HACCP is management by exception, and therefore record-keeping can be by exception. HACCP is about focusing on where things might go wrong. So you only write down something substantial when something goes wrong.
"We also instituted opening and closing checks - for instance, making sure that all the food was put away in the refrigerator overnight. But the managers did not have to write it all down, they just had to do it.
''The diary had a box to tick that the manager had followed all the Safe Methods, and an area to comment on any problems or changes.
"There is no cost - no equipment is bought and no consultants are used. Unfortunately words were used. Ideally no words would be used, so the system is now being formulated with graphics and photographs. An important factor was to nominate a person who would be responsible for food safety." - Teigue Payne See: www.e-haccp.org.uk
Anelich: Tel 011-789-5777;
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; website: www.foodsafetyinitiative.co.za
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