Risk Assessment

Make the Right Decisions in Controlling the Right Risks

In HACCP, the risk assessment step involves identifying potential hazards, assessing their likelihood and severity. This ensures systematic evaluation and management of risks associated with biological, chemical, physical, and allergenic hazards in the food production, handling, processing, and distribution.

Ensuring a thorough risk assessment protects you against costly recalls, preserves reputation integrity, and minimizes the likelihood of regulatory interventions. This process helps food businesses identify areas of concern and implement appropriate measures to mitigate risks and ensure compliance with food safety regulations and standards.

Hazard or Risk?

The WHO recommends that, to conduct a thorough risk assessment, both hazards and risks should be examined. Hazard and risk are terms that are often incorrectly used interchangeably, but they are in fact not the same.

This assessment is a complex process where in-depth expert knowledge is required.

Different Risks, Different Methods

In the food industry, there are different methods for conducting risk assessments to ensure food product safety and quality.

HACCP

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points will focus on food safety management systems. It involves seven principles:

• Conducting a hazard analysis
• Determining the critical control points (CCPs)
• Establishing critical limits
• Implementing monitoring procedures
• Taking corrective actions
• Verifying the HACCP Plan
• Establishing documentation

By applying HACCP principles, food producers can systematically evaluate and address risks associated with biological, chemical, allergenic, and physical hazards in food production.

TACCP

Threat Assessment and Critical Control Points address intentional threats or acts of sabotage or terrorism. By integrating TACCP into risk assessment practices, food producers can safeguard against deliberate threats to food safety.

VACCP

Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Points complement TACCP by focusing on the vulnerability of food supply chains to economically motivated adulteration (EMA) or food fraud. It aims to identify vulnerable points in the supply chain, enhance supplier control and verification processes, and implement measures to mitigate the risks of food fraud. By incorporating VACCP into risk assessment frameworks, food producers can enhance transparency, integrity, and trust in the food supply chain.

By following these steps, your organization can identify and mitigate potential risks to protect the health of your consumers and comprehensively assess risks and implement effective control measures to ensure the safety, quality, and integrity of your products.

Staying Up-to-date is Key

Assuring your food safety management system includes all relevant hazards is a daily task that can be time-consuming. You need to stay informed regarding relevant or new hazards and limits in regulations to react quickly and implement the right process. In order to help you conduct thorough hazard identification and risk assessment steps, we can support you with useful tools.

How can We Help?

Our consultants are available to assist you in maintaining your food safety management system in response to changes such as new products and new raw materials, new machinery implementation, and process modifications. These changes may require further risk assessment, and the implementation of an appropriate control plan may be necessary.