Leon Gorris, Unilever, China
In today’s world, food products and food ingredients are traded among many different countries and often sourced from or sold to geographical regions far away from their country of origin. Such a globalized food system presents the modern business model and serves consumer interests, increasing the overall availability and access to a variety of foods. Evidently, as food supply chains become increasingly longer and more complex, the challenge for governmental food safety control and private food safety management may increase too. Some high-level food safety incidents
with regional or even global impacts serve as stark examples of the consequences of food safety assurance fails some-where in a globalized system.
Ensuring food safety in practice
As the primary suppliers of food to the wider public, the food industry at large has an important role in food safety assurance. At a basic but very effective level, application of best practices such as GMP and GHP, in conjunction with suitable systems to manage individual food processing operations, such as those based on the principles of HACCP, will, to a large extent, help food industry to effectively manage potential food safety hazards during normal operations as well as in unexpected situations. To further strengthen food safety management, food industry of all sizes would, first and foremost, adequately and consistently implement those best practices and management systems that have time and again proven its usefulness. In the globalized food system food supply chain there are indeed challenges to adequate food safety management in every day practice. But there are also opportunities for future strengthening and harmonization, such as making use of the good resources and guidance available from global food safety organizations and to align more closely to modern approaches to food safety assurance adopted by Codex Alimentarius. This modern approach is framed as Risk Analysis, a science-based paradigm that focused on risks for effective food safety assurance, as opposed to more traditional, hazard-based, approaches.
Application of risk analysis to further improve food safety
Application of the concept of Risk Analysis for food safety is advocated by international organizations such as the WHO and FAO. Risk analysis integrates science-based risk assessment and risk communication with risk management. Risk assessment evaluates the risk posed by particular food safety hazards in order to provide options to risk managers in choosing actions that are proportional and effective in controlling food safety. Risk communication provides for an interactive exchange of information and opinions throughout the risk analysis process concerning hazards and risks, risk-related factors and risk perceptions, among all stakeholders: risk assessors, risk managers, consumers, industry, the academic community and other interested parties. More and more competent authorities around the world have embraced Risk Analysis principles as the international gold standard for food safety decision-making related to public health protection and international trade. It allows increasingly consistent local and international decision-making and focuses resources on the priority issues. From an industry’s point of view, aligning food safety management with outcomes of risk-based governmental decisions is extremely relevant and has many advantages. It can help guide the adoption of appropriate control measures in relation to the level of risk from possible food safety hazards, thus ensuring protection for consumers. It is not necessary for the food industry at large to adopt risk analysis for food safety management in every day practice as their role is to execute control measures properly through GHP/GMP and HACCP. However, some food companies have successfully applied risk analysis principles in designing food products and food processing methods before food products are brought to market.