Food Control System Research Articles

Assuring fish safety and quality in international fish trade

International trade in fishery commodities reached US$ 58.2 billion in 2002, a 5% improvement relative to 2000 and a 45% increase over 1992 levels. Within this global trade, developing countries registered a net trade surplus of US$ 17.4 billion in 2002 and accounted for almost 50% by value and 55% of fish exports by volume. This globalization of fish trade, coupled with technological developments in food production, handling, processing and distribution, and the increasing awareness and demand of consumers for safe and high quality food have put food safety and quality assurance high in public awareness and a priority for many governments. Consequently, many countries have tightened food safety controls, imposing additional costs and requirements on imports. As early as 1980, there was an international drive towards adopting preventative HACCP-based safety and quality systems. More recently, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to food safety and quality throughout the entire food chain. Implementation of this approach requires an enabling policy and regulatory environment at national and international levels with clearly defined rules and standards, establishment of appropriate food control systems and programmes at national and local levels, and provision of appropriate training and capacity building. This paper discusses the international framework for fish safety and quality, with particular emphasis on the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) strategy to promote international harmonization and capacity building.

The role of the Hellenic Food Safety Authority in Greece—Implementation strategies

During the last 15 years, a series of food scares and crises (BSE, dioxin, foot and mouth disease) have seriously undermined public confidence in food producers and operators and their capacity to produce safe food. As a result, food safety has become a top priority of the European legislative authorities and systems of national food control have been tightened up and have included the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority. In Greece a law creating the Hellenic Food Safety Authority has been approved. The main objectives of this Authority are to promote the food security to consumers and inform them of any changes or any development in the food and health sector. The paper reviews the general structure of the current food control system in Greece. It describes the structure and the mission of the Hellenic Food Safety Authority and explains the strategy to carry out inspections and the analysis of the preliminary results of such inspections. Details are also given of the personnel training and certification and accreditation standards to be met by the Authority by the end of 2004.

Outlook for Environmental Problems and Food safety-Cooperative network and policy making for protecting life and agricultural environment

This symposium aims at identifying what problems we are confronted with concerning the environment and food safety in the 21st century, how we can make a cooperative network and formulate a policy for protecting life and agricultural environment and what tasks we should take upon ourselves in the domain of agricultural medicine and rural health. The symposium extended its scope from the interest of consumers to social needs of food safety, recovering movement of trust in food safety by the government, international standardization of policy for food safety, increasing relationship between food and environment pollution, and a new public management concerning the ecosystem and food safety. The following research problems are important for the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine as motives of cooperative work between producers, consumers and researchers; national strategy for food safety control, development or revision of food regulations and standards of safety, a program for strengthening food surveillance and control systems, enhancement research work of food and environment surveillance, and promotion of consumer education and other community outreach initiatives.

New food control system in Japan and food analysis at NFRI

In Japan, there was a drastic change in food control system, which was brought about by problems with BSE. Food Safety Basic Law was newly enacted and Food Hygiene Law, Japanese Agricultural Standards Law and so on were revised. Food Safety Commission was newly established for risk assessment, and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare were reorganized on food safety. National Food Research Institute (NFRI) works for improvement of technology for food analysis, development of technology to ensure food safety and so on. Objects of food analysis are inorganic elements, acrylamide, mycotoxins, functional components, genetically modified organisms, varieties of rice and so on. Proficiency testing schemes (PTs) were introduced to NFRI for reliability of food analysis. Certified reference materials (CRMs) of food related materials prepared in Japan, and PTs provided by Japanese organization were limited. It is requested for Japanese organizations to prepare new CRMs and provide many kinds of PTs for solution of peculiar problems.

Food Safety and Chemical Contaminants: An Overview a

Food safety is a major consumer’s concern worldwide. Although several incidences of food poisoning have placed microbial contamination on the forefront during recent years, health risks due to chemical contamination still remain high. The most often cited chemical contaminants are derived from a variety of sources such as pesticides, environmental chemicals (PCBs. dioxin, heavy metals including lead, mercury), chemical contaminants as a result of food processing (acrylamide, nitrosamines etc.), naturally occurring toxicants (glycoalkaloids, mycotoxins, antinutritives etc), chemicals migrating from packaging materials, veterinary drugs and other chemical residues. In addition to the presence of unintentional contaminants, the quality and safety of foods could also be compromised by the addition of certain food additives, phytonutrients, exposure to irradiation and other substances. Food processors and the regulatory and enforcement agencies are facing an ever-increasing challenge to meet the consumer’s demands for safe foods that do not pose health risks or alter their lifestyle. As the food trade expands throughout the world, food safety has become a shared concern among both the developed and developing countries. Although food control systems do exist in the countries of Gulf region, in most of the cases they are not in line with national and international needs and are not able to cope with the new challenges of the modern era. The most appropriate methods to ensure the safety of food supplies are the strengthening of regular surveillance systems, developing methods for the systematic application of risk analysis, risk assessment and risk management strategies, and timely communication of information to develop and enforce the appropriate food safety laws globally as well as the development of international and national cooperation. This paper reviews issues, challenges and solutions to achieve food safety with respect to chemical contaminants, with emphasis on the Gulf region.

Case studies in food microbiology for food safety and quality

Developing Strategies for Control: Water as a Vector of Organisms Expectations of Food Control Systems - in the Past and Now Zoonotic Disease Should Pasteurization of Drinking Milk be Obligatory? Techniques for Control: Surveillance and Microbiological Analyses Microbial Hazards Post-production Product Handling and Acceptability HACCP and the Responsibilities of the Food Producer Product Formulation and Control Risk: Views of Risk Hazards and Risks The Need for Food Hygiene A Shelf Life Problem Airline Food and Control Failure Sampling, Criteria and Acceptance: Global Dissemination of Organisms and their Control Extending Shelf Life - Compromising Safety? Acceptable, Unsatisfactory and Unacceptable Concentrations of Pathogens in Ready-to-Eat Food Managing Risk: Managing Risk Changing a Risk Management Strategy Hygiene Improvement at Source What is Safe Food? Subject Index.

The organisation of the State Food and Veterinary Service of Lithuania

The author describes the State Food and Veterinary Service of Lithuania, the competent authority for public and animal health in Lithuania. The Director of the Service, the Chief Veterinary Officer, reports directly to the Prime Minister. Lithuania is divided into ten counties and thirty-four districts. The State Food and Veterinary Service has regional units in all the counties and districts and has a staff of 1,380 employees. The main tasks of the State Food and Veterinary Service are to implement the basic EU principles of market supervision in Lithuania, with an emphasis on ensuring food safety and control; to establish a unified food control system following the principle "from farm to fork"; to create a favourable environment for the free movement of goods between Lithuania and the countries of the EU while ensuring the safety of imported products of animal origin; to promote continuous improvements in the welfare of animals and to protect the animal population from contagious diseases.

The Spanish system of food controls––its administration and enforcement

Following a number of major food safety problems in Europe, including in particular the issues of BSE and dioxin, consumers have become increasingly concerned about food safety. This has led authorities in Europe to revise their systems of food control. The establishment of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is one of the main structural changes made at the moment within the European Union, and similar action at national level has been or is being taken by many EU member states. In Spain a law creating the Spanish Agency of Food Safety has been approved. This has general objectives that include the promotion of food security and offering guarantees and the provision of objective information to consumers and food businesses in the Spanish agrifood sector. This paper reviews the general structure of the current food control system in Spain. At a national level this involves three different Ministries. Spain however also has a devolved system involving Autonomous Communities––the paper considers Castilla y León as an example. In conclusion the paper recognises that Spain has a complex system for food control, and considers that it will take time before a full evaluation of the new system is possible.

Accredited laboratory for detection of irradiated foods in Poland

The history of the development and the role of the Accredited Laboratory for Detection of Irradiated Foods in the national quality food control system are described. The analytical methods for the detection of irradiation in foods adapted and accredited in the Laboratory are enumerated and discussed.

HACCP development and regulatory assessment in the United States of America

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is internationally recognized as the best method of assuring product safety by controlling foodborne safety hazards. Currently, within the USA, the FDA has mandated HACCP for fish and fishery products and is proposing mandating HACCP for fruit and vegetable juices. The USDA has mandated Pathogen Reduction/HACCP requirements for meat and poultry processing, and the NMFS Seafood Inspection Program operates a voluntary HACCP program for seafood plants. The requirements for mandatory implementation and proposed regulations represent a significant change in the manner in which foods are regulated for food safety and necessitate a new understanding of the different roles and responsibilities between the food industries and the regulatory agencies within the USA. Each agency will approach the evaluation process differently given their unique legislative authorities and programmatic operations. Nevertheless, each agency agrees that HACCP is the best food control system of choice and is committed to improve food safety requirements.

The role of government agencies in assessing HACCP

There is worldwide evaluation and reorganization of food inspection and control systems geared towards improving efficiencies, rationalizing human resources and introducing risk analysis-based approaches. The HACCP principles play a pivotal role in these preventive approaches. Their application is a responsibility of the food industry, whereas government control agencies are responsible for monitoring and assessing their proper implementation. This paper reviews some of the issues pertinent to HACCP assessment, namely its purpose, activities involved, frequency of assessment, HACCP approval/certification, qualifications and training of assessors. It is based on the experience of the author in training and assisting industry and government agencies in implementing HACCP-based quality systems, especially in developing countries, where food export has a major impact on the national economies.

PERFORMANCE COMPARISONS AMONG FOOD AND BEVERAGE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HONG KONG HOTELS

Computer-based information systems have recently emerged as one of the important tools for optimizing work procedure and improving service quality in the hotel industry. A fast and accurate information system can handle more than half of the procedural paper work and provide a wide range of management reports. However, the performance of an information system depends very much on its flexibility to accommodate changing business environments and severe competition. Hence, regular maintenance and after-sales service is essential for a satisfactory system. This paper focuses on an increasingly important system -the food and beverage cost control system in the hotel industry. A survey has been launched to review the existing Food and Beverage Cost Control Systems (FBCCS) operated in Hong Kong hotels. There were ten different FBCCSs namely as ACOM, Check, CIF, Fidelio, JD Edwards, Maxial, NCR, NEC, Pick, and Sun being covered in this survey. Among these systems, the features of Chinese Character ability, compatibility with other systems, on-line help, batch job support, on-line tutorial, training courses from developers, and hotline enquiry were inadequate. Detailed comparisons on the aspects of hardware/software, data/information, operational procedures, technical support and security matters among these ten systems were made. Only two systems, CIF and JD Edwards, were satisfactory in perrformance on these five aspects. The rest were performing satisfactory in three four aspects. These ten systems were further categorized by their hardware platforms. It happened that the perception of performance on Minicomputer driven stems is better than that of the PC-driven or Workstation-driven systems. This paper serves as a reference for hoteliers in evaluating their Food and Beverage Cost Control Systems, or for software developers and distributors in hancing their software.

Measuring Service Quality of the Computerized Food and Beverage Cost Control System in Hong Kong Hotels Using a Gaps Model Approach

Computerized food and beverage cost control systems have evolved rapidly during recent years. These computerized systems are designed to remove much of the calculation drudg ery in manual cost control systems, such as budgeting, inventory control, and recipe cost ing. However, many users complain that these systems do not meet their needs. This sug gests that there is a gap in the performance of computerized systems compared with users' actual needs. This article explores the expectations and experience of users of the comput erized Food and Beverage Cost Control Systems (FBCCSs) in some Hong Kong hotels. With the application of the Information System (IS) Service Perception Gap Model bor rowedfrom the marketing discipline, the major problems in the areas of data/information, hardware/software environment, operational procedures, technical support, and security are identifted. A number of suggestions are proposed for system developers to improve the existing computerized FBCCSs.

Agriculture and the state in industrial East Asia: the rise and fall of the food control system in Japan

State intervention to protect and support the agricultural sector represents a significant element in the political economy of most industrial countries. Central to this in the Japanese case has been the so‐called Food Control System, the regulatory structure within which the government has sought to ‘guide the market’ for rice throughout die post‐war period. The system had its origins in war‐time food rationing but continued to evolve, in response to changing economic and political pressures, until a crisis point was reached with the ‘Heisei Rice Riots’ of 1993/4 and the conclusion of the Uruguay Round agreement to open Japan's rice market to imports. The New Food Law, passed in the wake of these events, is thus widely seen as heralding the demise of the system which has determined how and at what price consumers have purchased their rice throughout the period of Japan's rise to economic super‐power status. In this article, which is derived from research for a comparative study of East Asian agricultural policy and institutions, the rise and fall of the Food Control System is viewed as a case study of the attempts of the ‘bureaucratic developmental state’ to manage the agricultural sector within the context of the industrial economy that Japan, like the other East Asian countries, has now become.

Microbiological Hazards and Emerging Food-Safety Issues Associated with Seafoods

The United States is entering into a new era in which dwindling natural fisheries resources are forcing regulatory agencies to develop a more holistic approach to seafood safety and natural marine resource issues. Public health issues associated with seafoods can be grouped as (i) environmentally induced (i.e., natural or anthropogenic), (ii) process-induced, (iii) distribution-induced, or (iv) consumer-induced hazards. Similarly, loss of habitat and ecosystem degradation threaten the future viability of fisheries and have important ramifications for seafood safety. In the United States, large-scale legistlative efforts are underway to reexamine regulatory food control systems. The driving forces behind these efforts are the discovery of new emerging pathogens for which little information is available and dramatic improvements in analytic technology that allow for detection of low levels of microbial and chemical contaminants in foods. The global nature of seafood trading issues and the worldwide implementation of new preventative food safety programs such as hazard analysis for critical control points are driving some of the efforts to build new scientific bridges that will reevaluate current risk analysis strategies. New scientific bridges are needed to close the gaps between the scientific community and society concerning the effects of anthropogenic impacts on seafood safety and the heatlh of coastal habitats and associated fishery resources. The driving force behind this latter issue is the realization that the United States has lost over half of its original coastal wetlands areas. Protecting, conserving, and restoring the health and safety of our fisheries resources will require an integrated approach of food science and fishery science.

Food control systems in Canada*

This paper provides an overview of the responsibilities and jurisdictional boundaries of Health Canada (HC) and Agriculture and Agri‐Food Canada (AAFC) with regard to food regulation in Canada. It examines their interagency coordination within the federal structure and with other levels of government, industry, and the consumer. The international developments are considered with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Canada, United States Trade Agreement (CUSTA) being regarded as likely to have a significant future impact. The federal food safety and quality system is complex and fragmented. Federal food regulation comes under the jurisdiction of four federal departments: HC, AAFC, Industry Canada (IC), and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC). All four departments are involved with inspection, surveillance, and the analysis of food sold in Canada. In addition, Canada's ten provincial and two territorial governments have provincial‐, regional‐, municipal‐, and local‐level governments that also have jurisdiction over food safety and quality. Consideration is first given to the main legislative provision covering food — the Federal Food and Drugs Act. This Act is administered by several of the Federal Government departments. The role of these departments is examined individually along with additional, more specific legal provisions for which responsibility is not divided (in particular, the Canada Agricultural Products [CAP] Act administered by AAFC, and the Consumer Packaging and Labeling Act [CPLA] administered by IC). The various reviews that have taken place in the recent past and those still in progress are considered, and the final part of this paper looks at the international developments that are likely to have a major impact on the future development of the Canadian food control system.

Harmonization of international requirements under HACCP-based food control systems

Harmonization of international requirements under HACCP-based food control systems

Elements of an effective national food control system

A safe, high quality and nutritious food supply is required to enhance and facilitate human, economic and social development. A well structured, effective and efficiently administered national food control system provides the necessary assurances to consumers that health and safety risks from food are minimized or prevented. It ensures that the quality of food gives good value for its cost while meeting consumer expectations and protects against fraudulent practices in the market place. Finally, it provides greater opportunity for national and international trade, increasing potential for national economic growth. This paper describes the important elements required of an effective national food control system. Further, it identifies the mechanisms for the integration of the various activities in food control to assure overall food quality, including food safety, by food control officials.

Brazil: a case study

This article describes how consumers in Brazil are protected from a food safety and commercial standpoint. It focuses on the development of inspection, laboratory, educational and food-borne disease control programmes. The 1988 Constitution was a landmark in food safety in that it established the municipalization of food control services. The article reviews government initiatives to establish food laws, and to protect consumers from fraud and producers against unfair competition. It concludes that although the legislation is adequate the food control system should be strengthened through better training, improved utilization of laboratories, and the effective control of establishments in slums, in other poor areas, and of street vendors. Post-harvesting techniques should also be improved to reduce food losses.

The effect of management protocols for juvenile carp ( Cyprinus carpio) culture on life history responses of a zooplankton food source, Moina micrura (Kurz.)

Three systems of carp ( Cyprinus carpio) culture (live food system, manured system, and control system) were used to examine environmentally dependent life history characteristics of zooplankton, Moina micrura. Twelve culture tubes with one neonate of M. micrura per tube and covered by nylon bolting cloth of 75 μm mesh size were suspended in situ in each culture system. Each culture tube was examined daily to evaluate life history patterns. Time to first reproduction ranged from 4 to 7 days in the control and manured systems and 3 to 5 days in the live food system. Mean longevity, net reproductive rate, average generation time, as well as total offspring production per female, were distinctly higher for the live food system than for the manured or control systems. Interactions between chemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, phosphate levels and primary productivity resulting in optimal conditions were responsible for large variations in life history characteristics of M. micrura among the culture systems.