Implement controls to manage safe food sources and products in food and drink operations
Overview
This standard is about the skills and knowledge required to implement proactive food safety management procedures. It involves establishing controls to check that food sources and products are safe and well managed either at specific or complete phases of the manufacturing process.
You will need to be able to brief staff as to what is expected of them and monitor activity to check that the food safety management system is applied.
This standard is for you if you work in food and drink operations or animal feed operations and your job requires you to have responsibilities for managing food safety. You may have management responsibilities for an operational team.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
Establish and develop new work practices and standard operating procedures
identify critical control points for which specific working practices need to be defined
examine the work area, equipment and current work practices to identify strengths and weaknesses in existing working practices and standard operating procedures
develop draft documentation working practice and standard operating procedures which address the potential weaknesses
revise draft working practices and standard operating procedures in response to feedback from technical staff and colleagues
identify training needs and implement trials of new working practices and standard operating procedures to assess their suitability and practicality
Brief staff on the application of working practices and standard operating procedures
check that documentation and materials which define working practices and standard operating procedures are clear and can be understood by staff
schedule the implementation of new working practices and standard operating procedures
implement briefing and training activity to check that staff understand the benefits and application of new working practices and standard operating procedures
monitor the early adoption of new working practices and standard operating procedures to check that they are working as intended
respond to queries and requests for clarification from staff members
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- the key requirements, including critical control points and critical limits of organisation's food safety management procedures
- the role of food safety management systems in the protection of food
- the differences between 'HACCP', 'TACCP' and 'VACCP' and how they apply to the organisation
- the expected roles, responsibilities and levels of authority of members of a food safety management team
- the impact that a positive safety culture can have on the effective operation of safe working practices
- the capabilities and limitations of team members and the impact that this can have on food safety
- the organisational methods used to train and assess the competence of team members
- the types of training and development activity that can be applied to address food safety related issues
- the differences between different levels of qualification and training in regards to food safety and what these indicate in regards to the skills and knowledge of individuals
- personal hygiene requirements and their implementation
- required cleaning and maintenance of equipment and environment
- key plant and environmental conditions which may pose a threat to food safety
- correct methods for segregation, storage and disposal of waste and of damaged or contaminated products
- preventive action in respect of controlling spread or increase in product contamination and cross-contamination
- sources and types of product contamination and cross-contamination, deterioration and spoilage and how to recognise them
- methods for monitoring and checking conformance to critical limits and how to implement them
- the benefits and approaches of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and specified working practices to food safety
- the use of audits in monitoring compliance against SOPs
- corrective action in the event of non-conformance to critical limits
- how to assess additional support, information and advice requirements
- where reliable and up to date information can be sought to help inform the implementation of food safety measures