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
Australian Smallgoods Food Safety Guidelines
The official release of the Australian Smallgoods Food Safety Guidelines took place in April of this year. The guidelines were developed by the Smallgoods Quality Standards Project in association with the National Meat Association of Australia (NMAA) and the National Meat Processors Association (NMPA). The project was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Tourism (DIST) and the smallgoods industry.
The guidelines are published in two volumes. Volume one is titled Smallgoods Industry Guidelines for Good Manufacturing Practices and volume two is Model HACCP Plans for Smallgoods Production. A complementary booklet, Guide to Implementation and Auditing of HACCP Plans, has recently been released as SCARM report no. 60.
The project which has taken over 12 months to complete was jointly managed by Food Operations and John McCausland and Associates.
The guidelines, which are framed around the HACCP concept, emphasise the need to build safety and quality into the manufacturing process.
At the release, John McCausland, one of the project managers, described how the project team undertook the work which resulted in the published documents and gave special mention to the smallgoods firms who assisted in the development of the guidelines. He emphasised that individual firms will have to formulate their own HACCP plans possibly with outside assistance. Mr McCausland stated that the model plans published in the second volume of the guidelines are a framework which manufacturers can modify to suit their own requirements.
Copies of the Australian Smallgoods Food Safety Guidelines are available from the State offices of the National Meat Association of Australia.
Barry Shay, manager of the Food Safety and Quality program for the Division of Food Science and Technology (DFST), acted as a technical consultant for this project.
As a result of input from the food industry, DFST has increased its resources in the area of HACCP and has added Edward Jansson to our Food Safety and Quality Program. Edward joins the Division after obtaining extensive experience in the food industry.
DFST can assist industry in identifying the hazards associated with a wide range of food processing operations as well as offering assistance in identifying critical control points and defining appropriate critical limits
Food Science Australia
PO Box 52, North Ryde 1670. Tel +61 2 9490 8397 Fax +61 2 9490 8499
Email enquiries@csiro.au