17 - Quality assurance in brewing

Abstract

Publisher Summary There has been increased pressure worldwide for breweries to implement systems to assure the safety, quality and legality of their products. These pressures have derived in some cases from legislative requirements and in other cases from commercial requirements. There has also been an increase in the number of standards and guidelines to assist breweries, and other food producers, to comply with requirements and, where necessary, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the systems implemented by achieving certification. This chapter presents a summary of the systems in place in breweries to achieve product safety, quality and legality, how these are implemented and, where applicable, the process for certification. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), which is a management system designed to assure the safety of food products, has been implemented in breweries worldwide. This applies to all stages of beer production, including processing, packaging, storing, transportation, distribution, handling and sale. The most common standard for quality management systems for breweries is ISO9001:2000. This standard specifies the quality system that the brewery should implement to prove its ability to manufacture and supply product to an established specification. Under the auspices of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), retailers produced a new standard for food producers, including breweries. This is now named the BRC Global Standard – Food. This combined the best elements from each of the individual retailer standards and provided a single standard that breweries and other food producers could be audited against. To assist breweries and other feed material producers to comply with the new requirements, the Feed Materials Assurance Scheme (FEMAS) was developed by various industry bodies.