Implementation of hazard analysis that meets ISO22000:2018: A case study of chocolate-coated dairy ice cream production line

Abstract:
Introduction: With rapid population growth, urbanization, and cultural changes, the demand for ready-to-eat foods has increased significantly, which, has led to industrial and large-scale production. Providing food products in large-scale, industrial food production is considered a rational way to deal with food security issues as well. Alongside its benefits toward deal with hunger, food safety hazards and their non-negligible effect on the health of consumers are considered major problems in industrial food production. In such a manner, with the prevalence of food-borne diseases in human societies, the issue of food safety has become one of the most important human challenges. Food safety hazards are reasonable to occur in any section of the food supply chain. In order to control and reduce the prevalence of food safety hazards, various preventive systems have been developed over time. The HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point), as one of the accepted methodologies to identify and assess food safety hazards, is commonly implemented by various organizations involved in any segment of the food supply chain.
In 2005, by using the conceptual methodologies of HACCP, ISO 22000:2005 was developed to address food safety hazards. Including recognized key elements such as interactive communications, system management, prerequisite programs (PRP), and hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP), ISO22000:2005 offers a dynamic control methodology that is able to deal with food safety hazards. Since ISO22000:2005 applies to the 7 principles and 12 application steps of the HACCP methodology, they are closely related. Later due to the changes in the ISO standard context and the introduction of High-level Structure (HLS), ISO22000 was revised to its latest version (ISO22000:2018). Today, this standard is considered a specialized food safety management system and is widely used by various enterprises involved in any section of food supply. Therefore, this standard can play a significant role in reducing the occurrence of food safety hazards.
Having a high-level structure (High-Level Structure) compatible with other many management system standards such as ISO9001:2015, and ISO22000:2018 consists of 10 core clauses. The first three clauses of this standard are not auditable and only the next seven clauses are considered as the auditable clauses. The structure of this standard is also based on the PDCA cycle where the 8th clause is considered as the Do or operational section.
In other words, Clause 8 of this standard is the operational clause that outlines the mandatory requirements related to the identification and analysis of food safety hazards. Due to the conceptual complexity and the difficulty of their practical implementation in food industries, appropriate implementation of these requirements seems to be problematic. In this regard, the aim of this study is an attempt to implement food safety hazard analysis based on ISO22000:2018 requirements in a chocolate-coated dairy ice cream production line as a model line.
Material and methods: To carry out the hazard analysis in accordance with the requirements of clause 8, preliminary documented pieces of information were collected and used for hazard analysis subsequently. In such a manner, a systematic approach including hazard assessment matrices and a decision tree was designed and incorporated. Furthermore, Characteristics of raw materials, ingredients, and product contact materials were defined and all related applicable statutory and regulatory food safety requirements were considered. In this regard, at first, the flow diagram of the product was drawn according to the actual operation, and as the order of the process, all operational steps were coded and identified respectively. In this regard, the interactions between the operational steps and the inputs and outputs of each step were drawn diagrammatically, and possible rework processes were also identified so that the possible hazards resulting from these operations were also recognized and evaluated. It should be noted that the drawn flow chart was confirmed for both work shifts before being used for hazard assessment.
It is worth mentioning that the expected and unexpected use of the final product along with the description of the final product were defined and prepared in accordance with the requirements mentioned in the relevant clauses. In the following, according to the prepared items and identified operational steps, the expected and reasonable safety hazards for each operational step were identified and according to the decision tree evaluated.
In this regard, by evaluating the identified hazard in three groups of physical, chemical, and biological hazards, the hazards were divided into two levels, non-significant and significant, and were managed through prerequisite programs and operational prerequisite programs or critical control points, respectively. It should be noted that in the direction of risk assessment, hazard assessment matrices were used at two levels of hazard assessment and risk assessment of control action failure for the significant. Both used matrices were five-level, and the level of hazard and failure of control measures were calculated by multiplying the probability of occurrence and their severity.
Results and discussion: The purpose of this study was to provide an appropriate systematic approach to identify and assess food safety issues. To investigate the effectiveness of applied methodologies, all the hazards related to the model line were identified and assessed. Identified significant and non-significant hazards were managed through PRPs and OPRPs or CCPs, respectively. In such a manner, the control measures in the form of 3 CCP and 4 OPRP points for the model line were established.
Conclusion: The methodology, decision tree, and matrices defined in this study, in accordance with the statutory and legislative regulations along with the prerequisite program, had the ability to identify, assess and control the hazards for the model production line. Therefore, it seems that the current methodology can be used for other products and parts of the food supply chain.