Food Safety in the Supply Chain
Food safety is the number one priority for food manufacturers, and the good news
for consumers is that, because of tight controls put in place by manufacturers,
food and drink which is made and sold in the UK and Europe has never been
safer.
Every product that you see on the supermarket shelf, be it ambient (which means
you can keep it in your kitchen cupboard), chilled (which means you need to
keep
it in the fridge) or frozen, will have different, and sometimes very complex,
food safety issues.
To help manage these issues and to ensure food safety manufacturers apply a
system called HACCP (pronounced 'hass-up'), which stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.
Companies making food and drink use the HACCP system to look at their
products and their manufacturing processes. They identify any potential dangers
associated with the food or the process and then monitor these closely to
ensure
the
product is safe.
As well as the act of making a product, HACCP also covers
the
way ingredients and products are produced, stored in factories and
transported
around the country.
In the highly unlikely event that something does go wrong, there are procedures
in place to allow manufacturers to contact the authorities and to let the
general
public know as soon as a problem is found. To help understand why something has
gone wrong with a product, all food and drink manufacturers must be able to
tell
who supplied them with the ingredients used in a product and also who they
supplied that product to. This is called 'one-up, one-down traceability'.
Last reviewed: 21 Nov 2008