Closing
gaps: Integrating food safety management systems into the veterinary
curriculum a tool to improve food quality and trade
Andrés Cartín-Rojas*
A very important and significant aspect of
veterinary public health (VPH) is to enable people to have access and
supply to nourishment within an appropriate quality.1 In general, the term “quality” refers to the set
of properties and characteristics of a product or service that gives it an
ability to satisfy the minimum needs of a given consumer.2
Thereby, the concept of food quality implies an aliment which has the
organoleptic, nutritional, physicochemical and safe characteristics to fit
the purpose for human consumption.3 Nowadays, maintaining food
quality is a key and pivotal element in any industry that manufactures or
processes animal by-products obliging them to meet the growing demand for
safety from the public and the regulator alike.
Consequently, preservation of safe food is
accompanied by the adoption of methodologies to identify and assess hazards
during its manufacturing process,4 such as Hazard Analysis and
Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans;5 or systems that allow
the proper risk analysis by implementing promising new procedures used in
food industry, for example Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA).6
Thus, the private food sector is being increasingly pressured to ensure
that food produced, handled, trans-ported and delivered to the public in
compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. In response, during the
last two decades a number of private accreditations were established to
safeguard food safety (e.g. Global Gap, PAS220, FSSC-22000, ISO 22000:2005,
ISO 22005: 2007, etc.). Some of these standards have gained a wide
acceptance in several countries during recent years. For example, the
International Food Standard (IFS) was created in 2003 which auditing
quality management systems in food companies in order to achieve maximum
safety. The IFS’s standards are now widely used by the food industry in some
European countries such as: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France,
Holland, Poland and Italy.
Currently, livestock sector accounts for
nearly half of global agricultural economy. Furthermore, the massive
mobilization of livestock commodities in the past two decades has increased
the gross domestic product (GDP, a modality for measuring economies and
development of nations). Thus, livestock sector in the future will be a
growing source of employment and an important tool to alleviate poverty and
malnutrition in the developing countries. It is expected with the current
production trends, together with a population growth and changes in
people’s dietary patterns, the demand for livestock products will double or
triple, a process called livestock revolution.7 Food risks will
increase in parallel, generating those governments should foster in the
oncoming decades more efficient mechanisms that allow safeguard consumer’s
health. A proper implementation of public policies in food safety requires
the integration of all actors along the production chain8 under
the guidelines of a structured and coherent regulatory framework, in order
to enable a trans-parent, objective and harmonized international trade.9
Under the regulatory patterns of World Trade Organization (WTO), through
the Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures, the World
Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is the normative body responsible for
ensuring the control of animal diseases including foodborne zoonoses. Thus,
public and private veterinary services are the managers who ensure
compliance with these regulatory frame-works. Therefore, it is imperative
and crucial that future veterinarians are able to contemplate, audit and
even implement these food management quality systems making veterinary
profession more pragmatic and adaptable to the new requirements of global
livestock markets.
Veterinary services could play an essential
role in inter-national markets and trade blocs by certifying the quality of
products ensuring that they are free from physical, chemical and
microbiological hazards. This will in return improve the confidence of
consumers and business partners. This is especially true for any country
with an agricultural background which bases its economy on
livestock-products exportations. Within this context of global market, Food
Safety Management Systems (FSMS) not only harmonizes with the food safety
requirements for any food chain, under the binding legislation issued by
the OIE. But also, allows that private food industry optimize their
resources, maintaining an effective internal and external communication
within organizations, and consequently, improve their performance and
competitiveness. In addition, FSMS also allows fulfilling and effectively
incorporating into the private industrial sector, of international
regulatory standards and codes issued by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) to ensure a seamless
coverage of food safety along the manufacturing and value chain.
Therefore, veterinarians professionals
should not only assimilate, but promote the implementation of new FSMS
methodologies in order to integrate mechanisms of standardization in the
manufacturing processes,10 allowing that FSMS to be established,
operated and updated within the framework by implementing a clear epidemiological
and preventive control of foodborne diseases, while amalgamate mechanisms
to actively participate and differentiate schemes to increase consumer
confidence, improve food security, reconciling food safety and quality
control, and allow that food producers, retail and distribution systems
will be based on international standards.
References
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2. Prieto M, Mouwen JM, Puente SL, et al.
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10. Mercado A, Córdova K, Testa P.
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* Department of Animal Production, Faculty
of Agronomy, School of Natural and Exact Sciences, State Distance
University, San José, Costa Rica.
[La primera versión de esta nota se publicó en Veterinary
Research Forum. 2013; 4 (4) 205 – 206 - Journal Homepage:
vrf.iranjournals.ir ]
© Andrés Cartín-Rojas
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