What is ISO 22000?
ISO 22000 is a food safety management systems standard that can be used by any company which deals with food safety, anywhere along the supply chain – from farm to fork. Because it is internationally recognised, many export companies use the standard to prove that they have independently audited and can be trusted.
By gaining certification to ISO 22000, businesses can show their customers that they have successfully implemented food safety in their company.
Alongside ISO 22000, there are legal requirements that companies also have to meet. By achieving ISO 22000 certification to your own food safety management system, you can assure your customers that you are also reaching your legal requirements in your company.
So, if you are part of the chain of food production, including transporters or distributors of food products, food suppliers, packhouses, food retailers or a bakery, the ISO 22000 standards are relevant to you.
Benefits of ISO 22000
There are many benefits to meeting the ISO 22000 standards in your business.
A major benefit is that because the ISO standards are internationally recognised, your food safety will be internationally recognised. This is especially beneficial for businesses that operate in more than one country. This means you only have to meet the one standard and it is recognised in most countries.
Another benefit of ISO 22000, is the integration of this management system with other management systems for other ISO standards. An integrated management system would make the administration of meeting the different standards a very easy and simple to use process. The other ISO standards include ISO 9001 quality management, ISO 45001 health and safety management, ISO 27001 information security management and ISO 14001 environmental management. All of these standards could also be relevant to your business and are the simplest standards to all integrate into one easy system.
As ISO 22000 is not a requirement by law, by meeting this standard, you are showing your customers that you value food safety and you are portraying to your customers another level of food safety. As you are going out of your way and using company resources to gain this standard, purely for the benefit of your customers, to prove to them that are serious about food safety and that it is important to your business to be as safe with the food which your customers will be eating, as possible.
Certification to ISO 22000
Implementing a food safety management system in your business could take up to 6-9 months.
The following are some typical steps to take:
- Conduct HACCP Awareness Programme
- Form a team and carry out Hazard Analysis
- Prepare your documentation and HACCP Plan
- Implementation HACCP Plan and the train your employees to the plans
- Train some Internal Auditors
- Conduct an internal audit
- From the findings take some Corrective Action to resolve those issues
- Apply for certification with a Certification Body
- Certification Body will conduct a stage 1 audit
- Address findings from stage 1 audit
- Certification Body will conduct a stage 2 audit
- Address findings from stage 1 audit
- The Certification Body will recommend your business for certification
Basic Requirements of ISO 22000
Below are the basic requirements that you will need to prove that you do all of the processes outlined in your food safety management system.
- Pre-requisites Program
- Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP)
- Incident reporting
- Calibration
- Quality control
- Product recall
- Training records
- Competencies
- Internal audit
- Management review
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