Factors affecting food safety compliance within small and medium-sized enterprises: implications for regulatory and enforcement strategies

Empirical research assessed the factors affecting compliance with food safety legislation within small and medium-sized enterprises. This showed that whilst some of the barriers identified within other research were present within food businesses (specifically time and money), there were also a number of complex, underlying issues that prevented compliance with regulatory requirements and which have implications for regulatory and enforcement policy. These barriers included the lack of trust in food safety legislation and enforcement officers; a lack of motivation in dealing with food safety legislation; and a lack of knowledge and understanding.     

Factors affecting the status of food safety management systems in the global fresh produce chain

Increase in global trade raised questions regarding status of food safety management systems in fresh produce companies, especially from developing and emerging countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the status of food safety management systems (FSMSs) implemented at primary production companies of fresh produce, to examine the potential differences between companies operating in European Union (EU) and non-EU (developing and emerging) countries, and to explore the underlying factors. Primary production companies (n = 118), located in the EU and in international cooperation partner countries exporting to the EU, were assessed by using a diagnostic tool. The results from the study indicated that several factors have a dominating effect on the status of FSMSs in the global fresh produce chain. International export supply chains promote capacity building within companies in the chain, to answer the stringent requirements of private brand standards. This was shown to be an important factor in emerging and developing countries, where local institutional environments often fail to support companies in setting and implementing their FSMSs. Moreover, the legislative framework in these countries still requires improvements in the establishment and enforcement. All this has negative consequences for the FSMSs in companies supplying the local markets. In companies located in the EU, sector and other produce organisations facilitate the sampling for pesticide residues and collaboration in the sector. Overall, farmers showed less knowledge and overall awareness regarding microbiological hazards, which is related to the less attention paid to these in the current legislation and standards. Furthermore, standards are an important tool to trigger the maturation of the systems as companies that were lacking any pressure to comply to standards operated at a very basic level - with only few activities implemented. The insights from this study indicate the need of stratified measures and policies to support companies in the fresh produce chain in designing and operating their FSMSs according to the institutional environment in which they operate.     

Food safety modernization act: A quality management approach to identify and prioritize factors affecting adoption of preventive controls among small food facilities

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law in the United States in 2011, shifting the existing food safety focus from a reactive to a preventive approach. According to literature, legislative requirements of FSMA can be challenging for small food facilities affected by the regulations immediately or in near future. Thus, the purpose of this research was to utilize quality management tools to identify and prioritize major challenges faced by small food facilities in adopting the preventive controls' component of the FSMA legislation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews of food industry representatives and academic professionals from the Midwest region of the United States. An affinity diagram was used to identify the set of challenges that emerged from the interviews, following which a weighted multi-voting survey was used to prioritize the identified challenges. Major identified challenges included: understanding of the FSMA law, cost of implementation, timeline for implementation, employee preparedness, absence of quality culture, and employee willingness. Furthermore, a difference was observed in how industry representatives and academic professionals rank ordered the above-listed challenges.     

Temperature management for the quality assurance of a perishable food supply chain

Compared to most product supply chains, food supply chains are often more complex and more difficult to manage because the food product is perishable and has a short shelf life. A cold chain or temperature-controlled supply chain provides the essential facilities and methods required to maintain the quality and quantity of foods. Since foods can be time and temperature sensitive in nature, they need to be properly taken care of in terms of harvesting, preparation, packaging, transportation and handling – in other words, throughout the entire chain. Temperature is the most important factor in prolonging or maintaining the shelf life of perishables. Refrigeration is one of most widely used methods to date to slow the bacteria growth that leads to food deterioration. The proper control and management of temperature is crucial in delivering perishables to consumers and ensuring that those perishables are in good condition and safe to eat. This paper addresses the methods used to improve the ability to define an optimal target temperature for multi-commodity refrigerated storage. Simulation results support the fact that the presented methods provide more accurate results compared to the conventional method. In addition, an experiment with a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) was conducted. As a result, the sensor-based methods for real time quality monitoring and assessment that consider product metabolism and Euclidean distance cost depending on temperature changes are found to be superior to the traditional visual assessment method.     

Variables sampling plans using composite samples for food quality assurance

Testing composite samples is a useful strategy to achieve sampling economy. Several studies have shown the effectiveness of this technique under the assumption of perfect mixing of primary samples. This paper investigates the effect of imperfect composite sample preparation on the performance of two and three-class variables sampling inspection plans, and identifies scenarios in which testing composite samples is not advantageous. The design of sampling plans using composite samples is discussed and an implementation guide based on two points of the OC curve for perfect and imperfect mixing is provided.     

Actual situation in the area of implementing quality assurance systems GMP,GHP and HACCP in Polish food production and processing plants

The survey was carried out in 16 provinces of Poland. Its objective was to collect information on the actual situation in the area of implementing Good Manufacture Practice (GMP), Good Hygiene Practice (GHP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) in food production and processing plants. The survey demonstrated that 91% of the surveyed plants are familiar with GHP rules and 95% with HACCP. 34% of the plants have already implemented the system, 35% are in the process of implementing it, 28% are thinking of its adoption and 3% do not intend to implement the system as long as possible. The advancement of the surveyed plants in GMP, GHP and HACCP implementation can be regarded as satisfactory.     

Food quality management system: Reviewing assessment strategies and a feasibility study for European food small and medium-sized enterprises

Literature indicates a need for a user-friendly food quality management system (FQMS) customized to the requirements of food small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for improving product and process quality and enhancing customer satisfaction. Application of quality management system within discreet and process industries is evident. However, there are limited studies that focused on the implementation of a quality management system (QMS) among SMEs operating in the food sector. This study explains the results of a feasibility study on FQMS among European Food SMEs. The objective of this study is to diagnose the status of the FQMS, and to find out what motivates and hinders the successful implementation of FQMS in SMEs. The findings show that none of the food SMEs involved in this study implements FQMS in its true form. The size of the company is a significant factor with respect to quality management implementation, as medium-sized companies were more mature in FQMS implementation compared to their small and micro counterparts. The confectionery, chocolate and meat sectors are more advanced than bakery, packaged fruits and vegetables sectors, with respect to the implementation of quality management tools and techniques. The study revealed that the most important benefits of a quality management system were reduction in cost of production and increased productivity. The key barrier to implementation of FQMS was “lack of knowledge and training” among food SMEs.     

Positioning food safety in Halal assurance

Muslims follow the religion of Islam and the food they eat should be Halal, meaning lawful or permissible. Muslims are allowed to eat halal and wholesome food that has been provided for them. However, some of the main prohibitions are swine flesh, blood, carrion, animals not slaughtered according to Islamic laws and alcoholic drinks. At present Halal assurance is in a complicated state, with various Halal standards differing from each other without gaining mutual acceptance. The world is starting to understand the need for an influential globally accepted standard that would open doors to global markets and gain consumer confidence. This paper discusses issues mainly related to food safety in Halal assurance. The aim was to discover and describe the approach to food safety requirements in Halal food provision and how this is incorporated in the Halal assurance systems. The position of food safety regulation within Halal requirements or Halal standards’ requirements for food safety is still unclear. This review also considers whether current Halal standards include criteria in common with internationally accepted food hygiene standards and emphasizes the potential of using the HACCP system for Halal assurance.     

影响聚丙烯F-401质量的因素及采取的措施

对4万1/a聚丙烯装置的工艺生产过程进行了分析，找出了产品质量未达标的主要原因；通过采取优化催化剂配制工艺、提高催化剂的活性、降低催化剂用量、控制聚合过程中的氢气加入量及优化挤压操作条件等措施，产品质量明显提高。     

Food safety assurance systems in China

China’s food industry grows fast since 1980s, with an average annual growth rate over 13%. Likewise the frequent outbreak of foodborne illness in China makes evident the deficiency of food safety assurance systems. The paper discussed food safety assurance systems in China. Specifically, the paper firstly introduced China’s food industry, food safety status and origin, food safety regulation agencies, and then compared two kinds of food safety assurance systems applied in China, in particular their market objectives, functions, management modes and resulting constraint forces on food producers, etc.     

Quality assurance of volumetric glassware for the determination of vitamins in food

Volumetric measurements are currently used in the analytical process to determine the vitamins content in foods. The variations in stability and integrity of volumetric apparatus, although relatively small when compared with other sources of error, should be monitored. The main purpose of this study was to investigate and identify a number of variables which, in daily use, can affect the life cycle of volumetric glassware. The role of in-house metrological hierarchy, the operator’s performance and the effect of temperature was evaluated for single volume flasks, single- and multi-mark pipettes. Biased nominal capacity was applied in the calculation of water-soluble vitamins (B1, B2, B6, niacin) and fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E) content. Persistent bias due to volumetric glassware, can reach 11%, in the results obtained for different vitamins content. The largest bias was observed for vitamin B1, perhaps due to the high amount of volumetric glassware used in the analytical procedure. This is an indication that the cost–benefit of a calibration plan should be evaluated in a rational way. The regular checking of volumetric glassware for stability and integrity is discussed on the light of the latest revision of ISO 17025.     

Food safety assurance systems in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the top food safety city in China. It is a large consumer-oriented city, with more than 95% of the food imported from abroad. The overall food safety rate has been 99.7% for the past 6 years. This paper discusses food safety assurance system in Hong Kong, specifically the food safety status of Hong Kong, its food safety regulation agencies and food safety assurance systems. The food safety assurance systems in Hong Kong developed to protect consumers could benefit China as a whole and other developing countries.     

An improved traceability system for food quality assurance and evaluation based on fuzzy classification and neural network

Currently, the food safety incidents happened frequently in china and the customer confidence declined rapidly, then the problems related to food quality and safety have attracted more and more social attention. Considering the concern with regard to food quality assurance and consumer confidence improvement, many companies have developed a traceability system to visualize the supply chain and avoid food safety incidents. In this paper, we proposed an improved food traceability system which can not only achieve forward tracking and diverse tracing like the existing systems do, but also evaluate the food quality timely along the supply chain and provide consumers with these evaluating information, to mainly enhance the consumer experience and help firms gain the trust of consumers. For the food quality evaluation, the method of fuzzy classification was used to evaluate the food quality at each stages of supply chain while the artificial neural network was adopted to derive the final determination of the grade of food quality according to all the stage quality evaluations. A case study of a pork producer was conducted, and the results showed that the improved traceability system performed well in food quality assurance and evaluation. In addition, implications of the proposed approach were discussed, and suggestions for future work were outlined.     

Assessment of food allergen management in small food facilities

In terms of public health, food allergen management (FAM) is one of the major areas of food safety management, required by standardised food safety management systems (FSMSs). This study involved performing an evaluation of the scope of application of FAM and identification of non-conformity areas in 24 small food production facilities where FSMSs are implemented. Conformity with the 41 criteria was evaluated by the semi-structured interview method with direct on-site observation. The percentile Conformance Index (CI) and the relative Conformance Index (CI_REL) were established, calculated by the relativisation methods (i.e. evaluation and metrisation), applied in quality engineering. The highest level of non-conformities in the 7 groups of criteria established in the form of a questionnaire was found in Cleaning (CI 29.6–47.2%, CI_REL 0.03–0.32), Transport & Storage (CI 30.6–54.2%, CI_REL 0.05–0.69) and Hazard Awareness (CI 27.8–59.3%, CI_REL 0–0.52). Factors which make it difficult to implement FAM included access to the validated methods of assessment of cleaning effectiveness in removing specific allergens, as well as good practices in separation of allergenic and non-allergenic materials during transport and storage, and personnel training in allergen control. These findings show clearly that implementation and certification of standardised FSMSs is a guarantee of implementation of FAM on a higher level of conformity with the evaluation criteria compared to those facilities which apply only the Codex HACCP principles. The conformity indexes CI and CI_REL proposed in this paper can be applied not only to determine the areas of non-conformity for FAM, but they can also be used to characterise and monitor FAM-related elements of FSMSs as part of self-evaluation and continuous improvement.     

Modular concepts of quality assurance in chemical reactor engineering

Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftyanoe Mashinostroenie, No. 3, pp. 34–36, March, 1992.     

镇巴复杂山地地震成像质量影响因素及对策

镇巴区块二维地震采集资料具有信噪比低、叠加成像能力弱、构造成像精度差的特点。在分析研究影响地震成像质量因素的基础上，就如何提高本区地震成像质量进行了探讨，给出了一些对策和建议。研究表明，地表以及地下地质结构的双重复杂性是造成镇巴区块地震成像质量变差的根本原因；野外采集资料信噪比低、质量差以及处理中各个环节所用模型、参数或方法等方面存在的不足是造成成像质量变差的主要原因。开展针对复杂山地地震资料专项处理技术的研究以及叠前深度偏移技术和广角地震技术的应用是改善成像质量较为有效的途经。     

固井质量影响因素分析

本文分析了影响固井质量的主要因素及关键环节。     

Factors influencing the implementation of food safety control systems in Taiwanese international tourist hotels

The aim of this study was to analyze food safety control systems (FSCS) in selected hotels in Taiwan in order to identify current issues and future trends in the hotel industry. Fourteen interviews were conducted with personnel in six large international tourist hotels with a FSCS in place. Analysis of the interviews indicated that a hotel's food safety standards and operations depended significantly on the attitudes of the hotel management. Public concern, competitive advantage and the government's food safety policies all had less influence on the implementation and maintenance of a FSCS than the ongoing support of management. Hotel managements hope, therefore, that the government will educate the public on food safety and provide incentives that enable hotels to adopt FSCS strategies while reducing the cost. The study contributes to the development of theory relating to the implementation of food safety strategies, particularly for the hotel industry.     

Fermentation — the key to food safety assurance in Africa?

Fermentation is widely practised at the household level as a method of preparing and preserving food, especially cereals, milk, fish and oil seeds. Evaluation of the microbial safety of these foods has involved deliberate inoculation with a number of pathogens. The Gram-negative bacteria appear to be more susceptible to the effects of fermentation, but the Gram-positive bacteria, especially Bacillus cereus, may be more resistant.

The microbial safety of these foods, seen in vitro, is not always apparent at the household level. This is especially so with the porridges, the preparation of which involves the addition of large volumes of water. Dumplings, however, appear to be microbiologically safer than the porridges.

In view of the presence of certain antimicrobial factors in fermented foods and the lack of standardisation in the methods used in the studies reviewed in this paper, carefully designed studies are proposed to find methods for enhancing the inhibitory effects of fermented foods.