RISK ANALYSIS IN FOOD VERSUS QUALITY MANAGEMENT

BRC , IFS , FSSC , ISO quality management systems indeed have many advantages to produce safe and reliable products . But quality auditors do  not categorize neither give priority to the risks. This is giving unnecessary labor and waste of time and money to all companies.

For instance WHO is assuming that max 7mm metal is not dangerous for men if swallowed.. Children often swallow cherry pits which is not given any nuisance and trouble. On the other hand we are installing 0,7 mm sensible metal detector , neodium boron 8000 gauss magnets to get rid of fine metal powder, X-Ray detectors . Beside the expenses done to buy you also have to calibrate all the time and certify the calibration.

1-2 mm stone in the product can hurt your teeth. But you do not die of it. Pesticide residues indeed have negative impact in human body in long term. You can not consume 1 Kg of spice in a year but 1 kg of bread in a day.

On the other hand salmonella and e-coli contamination or growth in the product may be fatal instantly.

The calibration of glassware of laboratories must be done once for life time , as glass is an inert material. Calibration of scales is good for the trade but has nothing to do with health risk.

The importance of Major and minor non –conformance do not have the same magnitude .

The classification of risks must be categorized as follows

GRADE 1   -FATAL

GRADE 2   -LONG TERM SPREAD

GRADE 3   -NO EFFECT

Non conformances must be rated accordingly.

For instance if you don’t have microbiological analysis done the non conformance rating must be more severe than if you haven’t calibrate your scale. And the ratio must be 1 to 10 at least if not 100.

At the present time allergens are an insolvent disease issue. But the occurrence is so scattered and diverse!  On the other hand the preventive efforts spent for contamination is huge. But regarded as fatal for some auditors.  I do not want to give the impression that allergen management, labelling is unimportant for me but cost benefit analysis must be done also for rating.

All companies have a limited budget for the improvement of the product and production. Hence Grade 1 conformity must be %100 while Grade 3 conformity may be overlooked  in some extent.

Avram Aji

01.11.2017