ISO 22000 food safety management standard revision underway

WITH concerns about food safety across the entire food chain growing even stronger, the revision of the ISO 22000 standard on food safety management is a welcome development. 

 

Gaps in the current version and new food safety requirements are prompting the need to revise the standard, which was first published in 2005. Players in the food chain, including manufacturers, consumers and governments, note the need for the revision amid new food safety requirements. 

 

The February 23-25 meeting in Dublin of the ISO working group (ISO/TC 34/SC 17/WG 8) in charge of the revision tackled necessary improvements to the standard. The discussions covered the need to clarify certain key concepts, in particular critical control points required to be managed, the operational program needed, approach to risks, product withdrawal and recall, and a combination of external control measures. The discussions likewise emphasized the value of updating terms and definitions, and making the standard simpler and more concise, and the content not too prescriptive. The revision team also discussed greater coverage of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

 

These aimed, in part, to address the gaps in the current version brought up by users of the standard during a consultation held last year. The said consultation highlighted certain terms found to be potentially confusing, unnecessary repetitions, and concepts that needed clarifying. The other findings included insufficient integration of SMEs and the need to improve the understanding of risk evaluation

 

ISO 22000 will adopt a format similar to other management systems standards (MSSs), which will follow an identical structure with common texts, terms, and definitions. 

 

The common format will facilitate easy compliance and certification for companies wanting to be certified to several MSSs such as ISO 9001 and ISO 22000. It will also ensure coherence between the standards, simplify their integrated use, and facilitate user reading and comprehension.

 

ISO 22000 will also be aligned with quality management standard ISO 9001 to ensure coherence. This is also because many companies and organizations do not use ISO 22000 on its own, but in conjunction with ISO 9001.

 

Moreover, the ISO/TS 22002 family supports specific sectors and enables them to implement ISO 22000 by providing tools to develop the prerequisite program necessary. 

 

The revision group will meet again in mid-October to work on a second version of the working document. The standard is expected to be published in 2017.