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Consumer confidence in food safety and regulatory agencies is waning as a consequence of recent food recalls. AOCS, as administrator of the US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to - and liaison member of - ISO/TC 34, has been tang enti ally involved with the concept of Food Safety Management Systems for the last six years. Several documents were prepared by Working Groups of TC 34 (Food Products) and are now housed in the subcommittee dedicated to Food Safety Management Systems (ISO/TC 34/SC 17). More companies are looking to differentiate their products through food safety- and quality management- system audits throughout their supply chains. With this in mind, the Food Safety Management Systems Hot Topic was organized by Gina Clapper, AOCS Technical Services, for the 101st AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo.
The session covered food safety management concepts from the farm to bulk grain to food/ingrethent manufacturers to information on AOCS' role in the ISO process. The first presentation was prepared by Mark Ames, AQS Management Systems (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), but was given by Clapper due to Ames' unavoidable absence. Food safety and quality are not "new" concepts. The Romans practiced and wrote food safety into law to protect their citizens. Eli Whitney used preventive management practices to manufacture products in the early 1800s. By the late 1800s, preventive management for controlling product and process outcomes had been well established and documented. The first fully developed, documented, and deployed Quality Management System was published by the US government in 1942 to support the mass production needs of World War II. The concepts in this document eventually evolved into ISO 9001 (in 1987).
The second part of the presentation introduced the...