International Food Safety and Quality Network - Essay Example

The new FSSC 22000 (Food Safety Certification 22000) scheme has been developed for food companies that manufacture or process perishable vegetal or animal products, products that have a long shelf life, and ingredients such as vitamins additives and bio-cultures. FSSC 22000 is a complete certification scheme that is based on PAS 22, a standard developed to address safety in ingredient manufacturers and food products,s and ISO 22000, the global food safety management system standard (Surak 2007).

Development of FSSC 22000When ISO 22000 scheme was reviewed by the GFSI for consideration of acceptance into its list of recognized standards ( which include IFS, BRS, Dutch HACCP, and SQF) these standards were not seen to cover into detail the pre-requite programs that are required to cover specific food safety concerns for certain food manufacturers. This made PAS 220 to be developed and be used in conjunction with ISO 22000, which covered those safety programs that are not included within the ISO 22000 safety standard (International Food Safety & Quality Network 2009).

The second requirement for this standard to be accepted within the GFSI program was that this safety standard should have its owner (Surak 2007). It was for these reasons why FSSC was developed to manage the certification and the accreditation activities of the FSSC 22000 safety standard along with its acceptance into the GFSI safety program. Those companies or manufacturers already with ISO 22000 safety certificates are only needed to be analyzed against the PAS 220 to enable them to be certified to the FSSC 22000 safety standards.

Companies not certified to ISO 22000 will require a gap analysis to determine their most practical route to FSSC 22000 certification (International Food Safety & Quality Network 2009).