The requirements of contamination control

Contents

• The standards
• The requirements
• BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9

The standards

This article is written to meet the following sections of the Standards:

*SOI: Statement of Intent

BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9

There are changes within the contamination control section, however none that specifically impact this subject.

Scope

The finished consumer product must be protected from contamination, which means that all materials involved in the supply-chain for that product need to be free from contamination.

Contamination can come from the processing environment:

• The processing and storage facility (such as fabrication, pipes, walkways, platforms, ladders).
• The processing and storage environment (such as airborne contamination).
• Equipment and lubrication.
• Tools and utensils.
• Material and finished product packaging.
• Personnel.
• Chemicals.

Risk assessment

Although contamination has already been covered in the product safety plan, further risk assessments are still required.

The product safety plan looks at the process steps specifically. It doesn’t look at the overall environment. And it only identifies the type of control needed, it doesn’t go into the detail needed to identify the specifics of how the control must be managed (unless it’s defined as a product safety control point).

Allergen risk assessment

For example, allergens are considered in the product safety plan, but on its own – the hazard analysis doesn’t provide enough detail to be able to prevent allergen cross-contamination.

Registers

The product safety plan also doesn’t go into sufficient detail to provide a register of where such contamination risks are located. For example, it wouldn’t identify where all the knives are on site, or how often they should be checked.

Please check

So, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that having a statement like ‘contamination is considered in the product safety plan’ in your contamination control procedure – will get you through your audit.

Methods

Before you document a risk assessment, you must decide what you’re trying to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it.

This means, you must write down your method for you risk assessment. Doing this may seem like a lot of work, but we promise you’ll find that it’s worth it. Having to write down a method, forces you to work through the detail – which means your assessment will be much more effective and consistent.