A bulletin for the Australian Food Industry May 1998
Contents: Food hygiene standards | Hand drying and hygiene | Date marking of packed foods | Survival of salmonellae in orange juice | Irradiation of meat | Aflatoxin in peanuts | Food Regulation Review
Food hygiene standards
The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) has released its proposal to develop standards for food hygiene practices and food premises and appliances. These are draft standards 4.2 and 4.3 respectively of the proposed national food hygiene standards. ANZFA states in the background to the proposal that there is 'a need for specific requirements on food hygiene and design and construction of food premises as per existing State and Territory food hygiene regulations in addition to the requirement to develop food safety programs. These requirements should be retained in national legislation and be essential and compulsory components of a food safety program.'
Draft Standard 4.2
In the scope and purpose of these standards, ANZFA states that standard 4.2 should set out requirements for a food business to produce food which is both safe and suitable.
The proposed definitions of 'safe' and 'suitable' are:
Safe food is food that will not cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared, stored and/or eaten according to its intended use.
Suitable food is food that:
(a) having regard to the intended use of the food:
(i) is not damaged, decomposed, deteriorated or perished; or
(ii) does not contain a damaged, decomposed, deteriorated or perished substance; and
(b) does not contain any biological or chemical agent, or matter foreign to the nature of the food, that is not intentionally added to food; and
(c) is not wholly or partly the product of a diseased animal or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.
It is possible that, after the period for public comment closes, ANZFA may choose to modify clause (b) of the definition for suitable food.
Proposed standard 4.2 is based on previous State legislation in food hygiene supplemented heavily by material derived from the US Department of Health and Human Services Food Code 1997.
There are at least three new requirements for all States and Territories:
(1) where a process step is needed to reduce to safe levels any pathogens that may be present in the food, the food business should be required to use a process step reasonably known to achieve the microbiological safety target for the food;
(2) potentially hazardous food, that will not undergo or is not currently undergoing a pathogen - eliminating step to render it microbiologically safe, should not be sold if it has been above 5°C and/or below 60°C for a cumulative period of four hours or longer unless the food business can demonstrate that the time the food has been held at these temperatures has not compromised the microbiological safety of the food ...;
(3) requiring food handlers, who are at work, to report certain illnesses, symptoms or conditions to the food business enabling the business to take action to control the hazards associated with the illness ....
The main thrust of this draft standard is that potentially hazardous foods are required to be stored either at or below 5°C or at or above 60°C.
This does not change existing State legislation.
In the draft standard, however, a food business may be exempted from the hot and cold storage temperature requirements for potentially hazardous foods if the business can demonstrate that the temperature at which the food is being maintained will not compromise the microbiological safety of the food.
Perishable food must be stored 'at a temperature which will, as far as is practicable, preserve it from deterioration' and a food business will be required to maintain stored frozen food frozen.
Food cooling times
Sections 2.1, 3.6, 4.2 and 6.2 of proposed standard 4.2 are concerned with storage temperatures, cooling of cooked potentially hazardous foods, temperature control of food on display, and temperature control of food during distribution.
In general, the requirement is for a food business to ensure that potentially hazardous food is kept at 5°C or lower or at 60°C or above, except if the food business can demonstrate that the safety of the food is not being compromised due to the temperature at which the food is being maintained and the time for which the food is being maintained at that temperature.
This is one area where presumably proposed standard 4.2 will complement standard 4.1 - Food Safety Plans.
The ANZFA proposal is almost exactly analogous to the 1997 US Food Code requirements and differs from previous State legislation only in that the time limit for which food may be between 5°C and 60°C is increased from 4 hours to 6 hours during cooling.
As was pointed out in the February 1998 issue of Food Safety & Hygiene, those cooling requirements are difficult to meet with standard refrigeration equipment. Snyder (Dairy Food and Environmental Sanitation 17(7)1997 398-404) has criticised the US requirement saying that the Food and Drug Administration has never justified scientifically the times nominated in the US Food Code while he has presented data which indicate they are not necessary for safe food. Readers are referred to Food Safety & Hygiene February 1998 for a more complete discussion of this topic.
For information on food hygiene standards contact:
Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA)
PO Box 7186, ACT 2610, telephone 02 6271 2222
Food Science Australia
PO Box 52, North Ryde 1670. Tel +61 2 9490 8397 Fax +61 2 9490 8499
Email enquiries@csiro.au