A Guide for Food Safety Program

People suffering from food allergies need to be able to obtain accurate information about the food you sell and its ingredients. This is crucial in helping them know if the food contains any allergens and if they can eat it without an allergic reaction. Common allergens include nuts, eggs, fish and dairy products, although there are also other foods that can cause allergic reactions. Without medication allergenic reactions can be serious.

There are real benefits of having a Food Safety Program with most businesses seeing a saving from reducing waste and improving productivity. A Food Safety Program that is followed correctly and has accurate and fully completed records is a valuable tool for ensuring that your business maintains safe food handling practices. If your business faces legal charges resulting from food you sold which harmed your customers, a Food Safety Program can be used as evidence of your business commitment to providing safe food.

The business owner/manager is responsible for the Food Safety Program and for ensuring that it is appropriate, complete and kept on the premises. Local council are responsible for administering food laws and for ensuring that a Department of Health approved Food Safety Program like Food Smart is appropriate for the business using it.

A Food safety auditor is a person approved under the state or territory food Act wherever the business is located to carry out a food safety audit for a specific category of business. As an example, an auditor is also approved to audit food businesses but not hospitals. This can be as a result of the audit competencies needed are totally different for these sorts of businesses.

What is HACCP?

HACCP, or the Hazard Analysis critical control point system, is a means of ensuring that food is safe. It provides a proper methodology for food businesses to manage the protection of food because it is ready and processed within the business. It needs businesses to:

• Identify what food safety issues may occur (food safety hazards) at every stage of food production. As an example, if cooked food is cooled too slowly, food poisoning bacteria can grow to dangerous levels.

• identify where these food safety problems can be controlled (that is, the steps during the production of the food where controls can be put in place).

Food businesses already take steps to make sure that the food they produce is safe. However, HACCP provides a formal documented system for businesses to ensure that nothing is missed.