Analyse food safety hazards and risks in food and drink operations

This standard is about the skills and knowledge required to analyse hazards and risks to food safety. It involves identifying and assessing critical control points and control points, and providing preventative and corrective actions for these hazards and risks.

You will need to be able to identify working practices and physical conditions which represent a food hazard. You will also be able to implement recommendations and action to rectify and reduce hazards.

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 food safety and/or health and safety. You may have responsibilities for managing an operational team.

Identify and analyse food hazards

1. assess the likely occurrence of hazards in respect of each product, or group of products, at each process step

assess the likely food hazards present at each stage of production

3. identify the conditions which influence the presence, severity and extent of hazards

analyse the presence, production or persistence of toxins, chemicals, foreign bodies, bacteria and spores in foods for human consumption

5. identify specific hazards caused by foods which are allergens

Investigate the impact of hazards in the manufacturing process

6. analyse the degree, extent and severity of risks resulting from presence of hazards

identify the potential impact of hazards on the safety of food and drink products

Implement methods to control hazards and risks

8. specify the points at which hazards must be controlled or eliminated

specify acceptable and unacceptable levels of hazards and risks within working practices and standard operating procedures

10. specify within standards operating procedures the actions to be taken when control has been lost at critical control points

provide an analysis of data and seek advice from multidisciplinary personnel to support analysis results

12. determine suitable timeframes for reported actions to be completed

1. the importance of food safety management and the implications of non-compliance
2. relevant and current food safety legislation in respect of both product type and working environment
3. the principles of the implementation of food safety management systems and their application
4. the nature and type of hazards which may occur in the food chain for each specific product or type of product
5. the nature, type, severity and implications of food safety hazards arising from each production stage
6. risk and threat assessment and management techniques relevant to the workplace
7. methods and types of hazard control
8. how to identify critical control points and determine critical limits
9. where and how to access advice and support for hazard analysis
10. where the relevant safety information relating to products including composition, physical/chemical structure, microcidal/static treatments, packaging durability, storage conditions, method of distribution and intended use by consumer can be found
11. conditions which influence the presence, severity, extent, frequency or introduction of hazards to food safety
12. control measures, in respect to each hazard and how to specify these
13. acceptable tolerances for the definition of measurable critical limits such as temperature, time, moisture level, pH
14. monitoring methods and procedures to guarantee control
15. types of actions and how to specify these for each control point including the disposition of affected products
16. relevant methods of verification and audit of food safety
17. the range and type of records required to complete an auditable documentation of food safety management procedures
18. who within the organisation is responsible for reporting on levels of compliance
19. the relevant procedures related to planning and scheduling action
20. the role of action planning in resolving non-compliance issues
21. who is responsible for implementing action
22. how planned action should be recorded
23. who action needs to reported to
24. the type of information that needs to be reported to both internal departments and, other organisations