Campden BRI says confusion over risk assessment threatens food safety

As the range and prevalence of hazards in the food chain continues to grow and food manufacturers increasingly look to global markets to source raw materials, Campden BRI is warning that confusion over risk assessment procedures could potentially compromise food safety.

“To date there has been no single point of reference for food manufacturers seeking to accurately assess the risk of using particular raw materials,” says Sue Emond, food safety specialist at Campden BRI.

“Instead, many manufacturers adopt a more ‘ad hoc’ approach to risk assessment driven by the underlying requirements from third parties such as the British Retail Consortium Global Standard for Food Safety and the International Food Standard (IFS) as well as advice from individual retailers themselves.

“Some of the hazards of concern today were not even recognised as possible causes of food borne illness just 10 years ago. Also, allergens continue to be a subject of growing awareness and increasingly strict control, and there’s the continued threat of deliberately added contaminants for financial gain. So it is clear that there needs to be a more comprehensive, logical and structured approach to the risk assessment of food ingredients.”

Campden BRI has therefore published new guidance on raw material risk assessment to provide specific advice and procedures to food manufacturers on the application of risk assessment techniques to identify, evaluate and control potential hazards associated with raw materials in a food, drink or feed manufacturing environment.

Risk assessment and management of raw materials (http://bit.ly/campden64) is a comprehensive method of identifying potential issues and hazards in incoming goods and assessing their probable severity and likelihood to determine where to implement safety procedures or introduce critical control points (CCPs) for certain raw materials, says the research organisation.