Food Safety Magazine - June/July 2013

Process control
(continued from page 21)
nance, calibration, HACCP, personal
hygiene, worker training, management
review, allergen control, shipping and
receiving, customer complaints, product
testing, metal detection, vendor approval/management,
traceability and
recalls and others. To ensure that these
programs are properly audited, the company
needs to make a commitment to
identifying and training a cadre of auditors.
Training may be done internally or
a firm may be hired. Many companies
will send their people to a program
organized by a firm that conducts ISO
internal auditor training. The company
must also develop the audit format. This
depends upon the company and the
complexity of its programs. Some use
forms, and others define the procedures
subject to auditing. The bottom line is
that the internal audit program, like the
ISO 22000 standard, is a systems approach
to verifying that procedures are
being followed as documented.
Summary
The ISO 22000 standard is nearly
8 years old and has been growing in
popularity year by year. It has also had a
major influence not only on the format
of all the audit schemes recognized by
GFSI but also on many of the other
private audit programs that have been
developed. Nonetheless, it has been the
elements discussed in this article that
have created some problems with many
processors. Recognizing that there is
great interest in the standard among
food processors, warehouse operations
and others, the committee responsible
for developing the standard has been actively
working to develop a support document,
entitled, aptly enough, How to
Use ISO 22000. The guidance document
looks at each clause of the standard and
has been designed to provide users,
especially small processors who may
not have the expertise present in large
companies, with assistance on how to
develop and implement their programs.
We hope this article will help processors
interested in ISO 22000 move forward
to use the standard, whether toward
certification or simply to utilize the
standard as the basis for their FSMS. •
Richard F. Stier is a consulting food
scientist and an editorial advisor to
Food Safety Magazine. He can be
reached at rickstier4@aol.com.
John G. Surak,
Ph.D., is the
principal of Surak and Associates
and is an editorial advisor to Food
Safety Magazine. His website is
www.stratecon-intl.com/jsurak.html.
He can be reached at jgsurak@yahoo.com.
References
1. Stier, R.F. and J.G. Surak. 2010. Verification: Making
sure your food safety management system is
working. Food Safety Magazine 16(2):24–29.
2. Surak, J.G. and R.F. Stier. 2009. Validating
food safety controls. Food Safety Magazine
15(4):16–21, 67.
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