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Food Safety in the Food Supply Chain

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Ground Beef Purchasing Specification for the National School Lunch Program

• The USDA Agricultural Market Service supply-chain safety and quality management system is detailed in specification TRS GB-2007 (PDF).

Articles about the National School Lunch Program supply chain

• Supply Chain Management in the Purchase of Ground Beef
• School Lunch Logistics: A look at supply chain quality management in the USDA's AMS National School Lunch Program 
• Delivering the "Stats" for National School Lunch Quality and Safety
• Food Safety Summit 2007 - Supply Chain Safety & Quality
• Lower Risk, Boost Safety - Use vendor certification and continuous process improvement to manage your supply chain safety and quality
• Food Safety Crisis

NWA SPC Applications for the Food Industry

The food processing industry includes all steps from farm to fork. Each step involves different process types all of which must be monitored to yield safety, specification conformance and optimized profits.

NWA SPC and Manufacturing Analytics software enables food companies to move from inspection-based models to process-control models which ensure higher-quality, safer products that meet regulatory requirements and maximize efficiency and profitability. Several NWA articles and white papers describe how to extend SPC and continuous process improvement to all areas of food processing and the food supply chain:

• Industry Solutions: Food Industry

The Role of SPC in HACCP

The HACCP process provides an effective, systematic method to analyze the process and identify potential biological, chemical and physical hazards. HACCP requires processors to develop strategies to reduce these hazards to acceptable levels.

A two-step process can be used to analyze HACCP data. First, data from the Critical Control Point is compared to critical limits to determine if there is a potential food safety hazard. Secondly, data analysis with a control chart determines if the process is stable or if dangerous trends exist that could affect food safety.

If the process is capable of meeting critical limits, then it should be possible to make adjustments in the process prior to producing unsafe food. In addition, the analysis can identify opportunities for improvements, increase the capability of the HACCP program, and reduce the risk of making unsafe food.

While HACCP is focused on food safety issues and not on quality enhancement, a well-designed HACCP program combined with SPC will help processors enhance product quality. The integration of process management with food safety continues to be developed. The most recent published standard is ISO 22000 which integrates management responsibility, process management, HACCP and prerequisite programs into a complete food safety management system.

SPC and HACCP

• Integrating HACCP and SPC
• Using SPC methods to trigger preventative maintenance and prevent CCP violations

ISO 22000 and HACCP

• ISO 22000:2005 Standard
• Comparison of ISO 9001 and ISO 22000
• A Recipe for Safe Food: ISO 22000 and HACCP (PDF; free registration required)
• ISO 22000: Food Safety Management Systems - An Easy-to-use Checklist for Small Business - Are You Ready?

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