The designated person in charge who is knowledgeable about food-borne disease prevention, HACCP principles and Code requirements is prepared to recognize conditions that may contribute to food-borne illness or that otherwise fail to comply with Code requirements, and to take appropriate preventive and corrective actions.
There are many ways in which the person in charge can demonstrate competency. Many aspects of the food operation itself will reflect the competency of that person. A dialogue with the person in charge during the inspection process will also reveal whether or not that person is enabled by a clear understanding of the Code and its public health principles to follow sound food safety practices and to produce foods that are safe, wholesome, unadulterated and accurately represented.
The Food Code does not require reporting of uninfected cuts or reporting of covered, protected infected cuts/lesions/boils since it requires no bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food.
Presently there are a wide variety of industry management training and certification programs being offered by regulatory agencies, academic institutions, food companies, industry groups and third-party organizations. Most certification programs share a common desire to have the food manager certificate they issue universally recognized and accepted by others, especially by the increasing number of regulatory authorities that require food manager certification.
Certification programs vary significantly in focus and primary mission of sponsors, organizational structures, staff resources, revenue sources, testing mechanisms, policies toward applicants and employers of food managers, and policies pertaining to such things as public information, criteria for maintaining certifi-cation and the need for recertification. Where courses are offered, they vary in scope, content, depth and duration, quality of instructional materials, qualifications of instructors, and instructional approach (classroom, on-the-job, PC-based, home study, etc.). Where testing is a program component, varying degrees of attention are given to test construction and test administration as they relate to nationally accepted standards (reliability, validity, job analysis, subject weighting, cut scores, test security, etc.).
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Responsibility
Designation of a person in charge during all hours of operation ensures the continuous presence of someone who is responsible for monitoring and managing all food establishment operations and who is authorized to take actions to ensure that the Code’s objectives are fulfilled. During the day-to-day operation of a food establishment, a person who is immediately available and knowledgeable in both operational and Code requirements is needed to respond to questions and concerns and to resolve problems.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Food and Drug Administration
The federal agency whose work this book focuses on is the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA touches the lives of virtually every American every day. It is the FDA’s job to see that the food we eat is safe and wholesome, the cosmetics we use won’t hurt us, the medicines and medical devices we use are safe and effective, and that radiation-emitting products such as microwave ovens won’t do us harm. Food and drugs for pets and farm animals also come under FDA scrutiny. The FDA also ensures that all of these products are labeled truthfully with the information that people need to use them properly.
The FDA is one of our nation’s oldest consumer protection agencies. Its approximately 9,000 employees monitor the manufacture, import, transport, storage and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products each year. It does that at a cost to the
taxpayer of about $3 per person.
First and foremost, the FDA is a public health agency, charged with protecting American consumers by enforcing the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and several related public health laws. To carry out this mandate of consumer protection, the FDA has some 1,100 investigators and inspectors who cover the country’s almost 95,000 FDA-regulated businesses. These employees are located in district and local offices in 157 cities across the country.
These investigators and inspectors visit more than 15,000 facilities a year, seeing that products are made right and labeled truthfully. As part of their inspections, they collect about 80,000 domestic and imported product samples for examination by FDA scientists or for label checks.
If a company is found violating any of the laws that the FDA enforces, the FDA can encourage the firm to voluntarily correct the problem or to recall a faulty product from the market. A recall is generally the fastest and most effective way to protect the public from an unsafe product.
When a company can’t or won’t correct a public health problem with one of its products voluntarily, the FDA has legal sanctions it can bring to bear. The agency can go to court to force a company to stop selling a product and to have items already produced seized and destroyed. When warranted, criminal penalties—including prison sentences—are sought against manufacturers and distributors.
About 3,000 products a year are found to be unfit for consumers and are withdrawn from the marketplace, either by voluntary recall or by court-ordered seizure. In addition, about 30,000 import shipments a year are detained at the port of entry because the goods appear to be unacceptable.
The FDA publishes the Food Code, a model that assists food control jurisdictions at all levels of government by providing them with a scientifically sound technical and legal basis for regulating the retail and food service segment of the industry. Local, state, tribal and federal regulators use the FDA Food Code as a model to develop or update their own food safety rules and to be consistent with national food regulatory policy. The FDA’s Food Code is intended to help state health
departments develop regulations for a food service inspection program. The Food Code is not actual law, it is basically the FDA’s advice on how to regulate the food system to ensure safety. Some states may adopt the Code in its entirety and others may just use it as a basis for their own code.
It also serves as a reference of best practices for the retail and food service industries (restaurants, grocery stores and institutions such as nursing homes) on how to prevent food-borne illness. Many of the over one million retail and food service establishments apply Food Code provisions to their own operations.
Between 1993 and 2001, the Food Code was issued, in its current format, every two years. With the support of the Conference for Food Protection, the FDA has decided to move to a four-year interval between complete Food Code revisions.
The next complete revision of the Food Code will be published in 2005. During the four-year interim period, a Food Code Supplement that updates, modifies or clarifies certain provisions is being made available.
The main areas on which the Food Code focuses are:
• Food handling and food preparation.
• Personnel.
• Equipment and utensils.
• Cleaning and sanitizing.
• Services (water, sewage, plumbing, waste disposal and pest management).
• Construction and maintenance.
• Compliance procedures.
The Food Code addresses controls for risk factors and establishes five key public health interventions to protect consumer health. Specifically, these interventions are:
• Demonstration of knowledge.
• Employee health controls.
• Controlling hands as a vehicle of contamination.
• Time and temperature parameters for controlling pathogens.
• Consumer advisory.
Consider also the following characteristics that retail food establishments share.
The industry has a wide range of employee resources, from highly trained executive chefs to entry-level front-line employees. Employees may have a broad range of educational levels and communication skills. It may be difficult to conduct in-house training and to maintain a trained staff because employees may speak different languages or there may be high employee turnover.
Many establishments are start-up businesses operating without benefit of a large corporate support structure and having a relatively low profit margin and perhaps less capital to work with than other segments of the food industry.
There is an almost endless number of production techniques, products, menu items and ingredients used. Suppliers, ingredients, menu items or specifications may change frequently.
The FDA is one of our nation’s oldest consumer protection agencies. Its approximately 9,000 employees monitor the manufacture, import, transport, storage and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products each year. It does that at a cost to the
taxpayer of about $3 per person.
First and foremost, the FDA is a public health agency, charged with protecting American consumers by enforcing the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and several related public health laws. To carry out this mandate of consumer protection, the FDA has some 1,100 investigators and inspectors who cover the country’s almost 95,000 FDA-regulated businesses. These employees are located in district and local offices in 157 cities across the country.
These investigators and inspectors visit more than 15,000 facilities a year, seeing that products are made right and labeled truthfully. As part of their inspections, they collect about 80,000 domestic and imported product samples for examination by FDA scientists or for label checks.
If a company is found violating any of the laws that the FDA enforces, the FDA can encourage the firm to voluntarily correct the problem or to recall a faulty product from the market. A recall is generally the fastest and most effective way to protect the public from an unsafe product.
When a company can’t or won’t correct a public health problem with one of its products voluntarily, the FDA has legal sanctions it can bring to bear. The agency can go to court to force a company to stop selling a product and to have items already produced seized and destroyed. When warranted, criminal penalties—including prison sentences—are sought against manufacturers and distributors.
About 3,000 products a year are found to be unfit for consumers and are withdrawn from the marketplace, either by voluntary recall or by court-ordered seizure. In addition, about 30,000 import shipments a year are detained at the port of entry because the goods appear to be unacceptable.
The FDA publishes the Food Code, a model that assists food control jurisdictions at all levels of government by providing them with a scientifically sound technical and legal basis for regulating the retail and food service segment of the industry. Local, state, tribal and federal regulators use the FDA Food Code as a model to develop or update their own food safety rules and to be consistent with national food regulatory policy. The FDA’s Food Code is intended to help state health
departments develop regulations for a food service inspection program. The Food Code is not actual law, it is basically the FDA’s advice on how to regulate the food system to ensure safety. Some states may adopt the Code in its entirety and others may just use it as a basis for their own code.
It also serves as a reference of best practices for the retail and food service industries (restaurants, grocery stores and institutions such as nursing homes) on how to prevent food-borne illness. Many of the over one million retail and food service establishments apply Food Code provisions to their own operations.
Between 1993 and 2001, the Food Code was issued, in its current format, every two years. With the support of the Conference for Food Protection, the FDA has decided to move to a four-year interval between complete Food Code revisions.
The next complete revision of the Food Code will be published in 2005. During the four-year interim period, a Food Code Supplement that updates, modifies or clarifies certain provisions is being made available.
The main areas on which the Food Code focuses are:
• Food handling and food preparation.
• Personnel.
• Equipment and utensils.
• Cleaning and sanitizing.
• Services (water, sewage, plumbing, waste disposal and pest management).
• Construction and maintenance.
• Compliance procedures.
The Food Code addresses controls for risk factors and establishes five key public health interventions to protect consumer health. Specifically, these interventions are:
• Demonstration of knowledge.
• Employee health controls.
• Controlling hands as a vehicle of contamination.
• Time and temperature parameters for controlling pathogens.
• Consumer advisory.
Consider also the following characteristics that retail food establishments share.
The industry has a wide range of employee resources, from highly trained executive chefs to entry-level front-line employees. Employees may have a broad range of educational levels and communication skills. It may be difficult to conduct in-house training and to maintain a trained staff because employees may speak different languages or there may be high employee turnover.
Many establishments are start-up businesses operating without benefit of a large corporate support structure and having a relatively low profit margin and perhaps less capital to work with than other segments of the food industry.
There is an almost endless number of production techniques, products, menu items and ingredients used. Suppliers, ingredients, menu items or specifications may change frequently.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Verification and Documentation of Correction
After observing at the time of inspection a correction of a critical violation or deviation, the health department will enter the violation and information about the corrective action on the inspection report.
After receiving notification that the permit holder has corrected a critical violation or HACCP plan deviation, or at the end of the specified period of time, the health department will verify correction of the violation, document the information on an inspection report, and enter the report in the health department’s records.
The permit holder must correct noncritical violations by a date and time agreed to or specified by the health department but no later than 90 calendar days after the inspection. (The health department may approve a compliance schedule that
extends beyond these time limits if a written schedule of compliance is submitted by the permit holder and no health hazard exists or will result from allowing an extended schedule for compliance.)
After receiving notification that the permit holder has corrected a critical violation or HACCP plan deviation, or at the end of the specified period of time, the health department will verify correction of the violation, document the information on an inspection report, and enter the report in the health department’s records.
The permit holder must correct noncritical violations by a date and time agreed to or specified by the health department but no later than 90 calendar days after the inspection. (The health department may approve a compliance schedule that
extends beyond these time limits if a written schedule of compliance is submitted by the permit holder and no health hazard exists or will result from allowing an extended schedule for compliance.)
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