ISO 22000 Foundation: Food Safety Management Guide

This course is for students who want to gain foundation knowledge about ISO 22000 and those who are planning to take the ISO 22000 Foundation exam. It is also intended to people interested in making their organization compliant with the ISO 22000 standard or food specialists who are looking for a more organized approach to handle and manage food safety in their enterprise.

The consequences of unsafe food can be serious. ISO’s food safety management standards help organizations identify and control food safety hazards, at the same time as working together with other ISO management standards, such as ISO 9001. Applicable to all types of producer, ISO 22000 provides a layer of reassurance within the global food supply chain, helping products cross borders and bringing people food that they can trust.

ISO 22000 sets out the requirements for a food safety management system and can be certified to it. It maps out what an organization needs to do to demonstrate its ability to control food safety hazards in order to ensure that food is safe. It can be used by any organization regardless of its size or position in the food chain.

ISO 22000 is the most popular voluntary food safety international standard in the food industry with 39,651 sites certified (as per the ISO Survey 2019). The ISO 22000 family are international voluntary consensus standards which align to Good Standardization Practices (GSP)[3] and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Principles for the Development of International Standards.[4] Defining the requirements for a Food Safety Management System (FSMS) and incorporating the following elements which as defined as FSMS principles:

• interactive communication

• system management

• prerequisite programs

• HACCP principles

Critical reviews of the above elements have been conducted by many scientists.[5][6][7][8] Communication along the food chain is essential to ensure that all relevant food safety hazards are identified and adequately controlled at each step within the food chain. This implies communication between organizations both upstream and downstream in the food chain. Communication with customers and suppliers about identified hazards and control measures will assist in clarifying customer and supplier requirements.

Recognition of the organization's role and position within the food chain is essential to ensure effective interactive communication throughout the chain in order to deliver safe food products to the consumer.