FOOD QUALITY CONTROL

The principal objectives of national food control systems are:

Protecting public health by reducing the risk of foodborne illness;
Protecting consumers from unsanitary, unwholesome, mislabelled or
adulterated food; and
Contributing to economic development by maintaining consumer
confidence in the food system and providing a sound regulatory
foundation for domestic and international trade in food.

The Problem
Resistance and virulence of emerging
pathogens

Patchwork system of food safety regulation

Lack of an effective, low cost method of

ensuring
safety
of food products

Lack of regulatory oversight beyond

commercial
facilities

Lack of effective consumer education

programs

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Consumer Expectations

Consumers expect safe, hazard

free food

Responsibility is shared by:

food producers
processors
purveyors
regulatory agencies

Food borne illness

24 million people per year

cost of $7 billion

10,000 deaths

mishandling at retail level is a factor

12 million workers in 1 million establishments

regulatory agencies alone cannot

prevent

cooperation with industry required

Production and Process Controls:

manufacturing operations must

be monitored

pH, water activity, temperatures

elimination of metal from product

personnel should be trained and

aware of GMP requirements

HACCP Basics:

Defects always possible with less

than 100% testing

Detection of hazards by end product

testing is only as good as statistics
behind sampling and testing protocols

HACCP prevents rather than detects

Seven Steps of HACCP:

Assess Potential Hazards

Determine Critical Control Points
Establish requirements for each CCP
Establish procedure to monitor each CCP
Establish corrective action if deviation
Establish record keeping procedures
Establish procedure to monitor
effectiveness

Step #1:
Determine Potential Hazards

First step in developing program

what hazards might exist

What is a hazard

poisonous or deleterious substance

(P/D)
microbiological
chemical
physical

Hazard more specific than adulterant

b/c product may be adulterated
without being hazardous

Step #2:
Identify Critical Control Points (CCPs)

CCP is a point at which a hazard

might develop

if hazard results from loss of control,

point is critical

QCP is point where quality might be

affected

if reduction in quality occurs, point is a

quality control point

Step #3:
Establishing Control Limits

Hazard may develop if CCP out

of control

Determine how much out of

control results in a hazard

Limits must be set for each CCP

Knowledge of both hazards and

the process is important

Step #4:
Establish System to Monitor CCPs

Monitoring system to determine when

process exceeds limits

Continuous monitoring preferred with

immediate correction

Periodic sampling and testing may be only

reasonable alternative

Continuous or frequent monitoring used to

establish trends

Step #5:
Corrective action

May be as simple as rejecting

a shipment or ingredient

May require adjusting

calibration of measuring
device

May necessitate shutting down

an operation

Step #6:
Record Keeping

Must have effective record

keeping system to:
demonstrate establishment of
system
document its utilization
verify efficacy

Step #7:
Verification of Program - HACCP Plan

Written plan to describe system

May be shown to FDA as evidence

that plan has been developed

Monitoring data and records of

actions may be reviewed by:

company management
regulatory officials

Methods of food quality control

In

addition to ensuring safe and health food for the consumer,

product manufacturers and service industries have realized that
competition in a global market require a continual and committed
effort towards the improvement of product and service quality.
Quality

control process consists of raw materials, in-process, product and

service. The major factors in process that cause variability in quality of
finished product are people, equipment and methods or technologies
employed in the process.
Some of the newer and more rapid methods of food quality control are:
Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) or differential mobility spectrometry (DMS)
These methods are used in the identification and quantification of analytes
with high sensitivity.
The method is suitable for application in the field of food quality and safety
-including storage, process and quality control as well as the characterization
of food stuffs (Vautz 2006).

Electronic-nose is used in the process control of cheese,

sausage, beer, and bread manufacture as well as for
detection of off-flavors in milk and dairy products. This
technique has other applications too

Immunochemical methods; This method is based on

antigen antibody interaction.
Biosensors Biosensor is usually a device or instrument
comprising a biological sensing element coupled to a
transducer for signal processing (Songa et al, 2009).

Conclusions
Without

doubts, there is a need for continuous

improvements in rapid diagnostic methods,
analytical techniques as well as visionary and
computational equipments required for food quality
control of the future. For example, as it stands
today, only about 41.5% of microbiology tests
utilized rapid methods.
It is expected that, there will be significant
economic benefits and the ability to practice
proactive and risk prevention food safety programs.