Thirteen years after the launch of its first edition, the ISO 22000 standard – ‘Food safety management systems, Requirements for any organization in the food chain’ – receives its first update. The news follows.
ISO 22000, the food safety management model
The international standard iso 22000 has for years been the reference scheme for ensuring food safety throughout the entire agri-food supply chain. Its requirements can be voluntarily applied by all organizations in the food and feed sectors, regardless of size, processes, stakeholders, and positions in the supply chain.
It is therefore an umbrella standard, able to offer each operator – from primary agricultural production and import to final distribution, including obviously processing – a model to follow for risk analysis and management. In addition to a technical language consistent with regulations, useful for sharing news among supply chain operators.
The scheme of FSSC 22000 certification – developed on this basis, integrated by the PRP’s (Pre-Requisite Programs) applicable – has therefore been recognized as equivalent to private schemes developed under the impulse of large-scale retail trade, such as IFS and BRC among the most known.
ISO 22000:2018, the first revision
ISO 22000:2018, published last June, represents the first revision of the management system of food safety. Which is updated in light of the most recent development of the basic quality management model, introduced with ISO 9001:2015.
The changes can be understood, overall, as an encouragement to pay greater attention to the external environment. And so:
– HLS. The adoption of a High Level Structure ISO (HLS) is planned, in line with the latest updates of the various ISO systems. The High Level Structure calls for important reflections on context analysis, stakeholder mapping, risk analysis understood as threats and opportunities.
The method of Risk-Based Thinking, historically applied at the operational level (through the approach of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, HACCP), must therefore also be adopted at the strategic level, in a broader perspective that calls to SWOT analysis (Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat),
– PDCA. To the logic of the two levels of risk, operational and strategic, corresponds a dual cycle Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). To the classic cycle, related to the specific field of food safety, is added that concerning the management system as a whole, which must consider all business processes,
– Food safety policy. Greater emphasis is then attributed to the food safety policy, with explicit reference to continuous improvement and communication to personnel. The centrality of individuals and their awareness is indeed emphasized repeatedly by ISO 9001:2015,
– Work environment. The work environment in turn receives renewed attention and evaluation. The organization must therefore consider social and psychological factors, in addition to physical ones. Underestimating these aspects may expose the company to threats that can degenerate into intentional food adulterations (Food Tampering).
Certified organizations according to the ISO 22000:2005 standard must update their certificate to ISO 22000:2018 within three years from its publication date, that is by 19.6.21.
Dario Dongo
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT – Food Times) and Égalité.
