According to a 2020-report of the World Health Organisation, an estimated 600 million – 1 in 10 people in the world – suffer from food poisoning and associated complications every year.
Unsanitary conditions coupled with disease-carrying pests in food facilities can cause widespread foodborne illness outbreaks. Filth flies in particular are a huge threat to food safety and human health due to their potential to transmit at least 65 known diseases. Furthermore, these insects feed on decaying organic waste and carry over a million pathogens on their bodies.
Hence, food safety regulations are an absolute necessity across the food supply chain. Let’s take a look at some of these regulations.
Food Safety Modernisation Act Compliance
The United States government implemented the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) in 2015 to transform the nation’s food safety system. The legislation aimed to shift the focus from responding to food-borne illnesses to preventing them.
Hence, the government established a proactive system for the food industry through which it could easily implement various measures to prevent contamination. It mandated the implementation of minimum standards for the Hazard Analysis and Risk-based Preventive Control (HARPC) provisions and its other derivatives in all food facilities.
HACCP or HARPC Compliance
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a systematic preventive approach that tackles various biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes. It was established in the late 1960s as a system to be used at all stages of the food supply chain — from food production to preparation processes. Over the years, it has been recognised internationally as a tool for adapting traditional post-production inspection methods for modern food safety systems.
Implementation of the HACCP regulation in facilities involves monitoring, verifying, and validating that the daily work complies with regulatory requirements at all stages. It requires facilities to maintain certain documents such as:
- Hazard analysis and written HACCP plan
- Records documenting the monitoring of
- – Critical control points
- – Critical limits
- – Verification activities
- – Processing deviations
Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) is similar in concept to HACCP guidelines, though not applicable to any HACCP or USDA-regulated facilities. It provides a preventive framework, designed to identify specific potential threats to the food supply chain and implement appropriate steps to counter them.
HARPC requires the owner, operator, or agent in charge of a food facility to prepare a written plan to:
- Evaluate the hazards that could affect food manufactured, processed, packed, or held by the facility
- Identify and implement preventive controls
- Monitor the performance of those controls
- Develop corrective actions if preventative controls are not effective
- Verify that preventative controls are effective
The importance of food safety to modern human life is difficult to understate. Food safety problems are a leading cause of more than 200 preventable diseases worldwide. Each year, one in ten people suffer from food-borne illnesses or injuries. Further, an estimated 420,000 people die every year as a result of eating contaminated food.
Hence, it is important for facilities to follow food safety regulations and invest in pest management solutions such as LED insect light traps that deliver superior performance, energy savings, and low running costs.
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