A bulletin for the Australian Food Industry June 1997
Contents: Food poisoning and the regulatory response | Cutting boards - is plastic better than wood? | Hygiene monitoring by ATP luminometry | AQIS Director defends food inspection system | Cheese from unpasteurised milk banned | Oysters and Hepatitis A | Farmers seek compensation over chemical residue in meat | Australian Smallgoods Food Safety Guidelines
Food poisoning and the regulatory response
The recent well reported incidents of food poisoning in Victoria associated with Salmonella spp. have resulted in growing pressure on the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) to produce its long awaited national food hygiene standards.In mid-May ANZFA released a preliminary draft of Standard A Food Hygiene Principles and an associated information paper. It is proposed that four food hygiene standards will form volume 2 of the Australian Food Standards Code. The standards are:
Standard A Food Hygiene Principles
Standard B Food Premises and Equipment
Standard C Food Handling and Storage; and
Standard D Microbiological Criteria
It was announced that standards B to D will be developed by ANZFA as a matter of urgency and it is anticipated that Standards A, B and C will be recommended to the Australian Food Standards Council by December 1997.
Compliance with Standards B and C will be compulsory from the date of gazettal. Compliance with Standard A will be optional for two years from the commencement date. Those food businesses which choose not to opt for compliances with Standard A during the two years after its introduction must comply with existing food hygiene regulations.
As discussed previously, the basis of the new standards will be that all food businesses will ultimately be required to have a written food safety program. The draft standard states that a food safety program must:
(1) systematically identify and analyse the potential hazards in all operations of a food business;
(2) identify where in an operation each hazard can be controlled and the means of control; and
(3) provide for the systematic supervision and monitoring of the controls and the development of appropriate corrective action when the process is found to be not under control.
On the already contentious issue of auditing of food safety programs, ANZFA believes that the following principles should underpin the audit system.
- audits should be carried out by suitably qualified people provided they meet the requirements for auditor certification;
- the audit process should be open to third parties and contestable;
- prosecution and enforcement functions should remain with government authorities;
- to avoid potential conflicts of interest, individuals or companies which develop food safety programs should not be certified as auditors.
Once the formal ANZFA public consultation process commences with the issue of the final draft Standard A Food Hygiene Principles, expected about the time that this bulletin goes to press, interested parties will have a limited time only to comment on the detail of the proposals.
For further information contact:
Jean Shannon
Australia New Zealand Food Authority
PO Box 7186
Canberra MC ACT 2610
Food Science Australia
PO Box 52, North Ryde 1670. Tel +61 2 9490 8397 Fax +61 2 9490 8499
Email enquiries@csiro.au