ISO 22000 standard revision progressing
The international working group in charge of the revision, whose secretariat is held by the Danish Standards Foundation (DS), ISO’s member for Denmark, held its fourth meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in early April.
The standard is at the Committee Draft (CD) stage and more than 1,000 comments have been collated by DS.
They decided that a second CD would be necessary to go through the second draft of comments with international stakeholders from 14-16 June in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The standard was first published in 2005 and the revised version is expected by late 2017.
The revised standard will incorporate:
• Interactive communication along the food chain
• A systematic approach to management
• Prerequisite Programmes
• HACCP principles
One area of work is to give users a clear description of the differences between Critical Control Points (CCPs), Operational Prerequisite Programmes (OPRPs) and Prerequisite Programmes (PRPs).
More than 30,000 companies were certified to ISO 22000 by the end of 2014, according to an ISO survey.
AFNOR update
France is playing an active role in the process, with organizations and professionals within AFNOR's "Food traceability and safety" standardization commission, said the group earlier this year.
"The new version of the standard will especially draw inspiration from two documents that France¹ spearheaded, coordinated and published in 2014. I am referring to ISO 22004 and its guidance on using ISO 22000 with respect to the industry's new practices and requirements," said Jean-Robert Geoffroy, managing director of ADRIA Développement and chairman of the AFNOR Commission.
Olivier Boutou, sustainable development and CSR expert at AFNOR Development, said clarifying certain concepts, such as operational prerequisite programmes, the hazard-based approach, and product withdrawal and recall are clearly defined objectives.
"This standard remains focused on preventing the unintentional contamination of food that could affect consumers' health,” he said.
“The definition of "acceptable level of hazard" should be featured in the new version, as well as the concept of an action criterion (or action limit) for monitoring an OPRP. This should help clarify the differences with the concept of a "critical limit" for a CCP, which distinguishes a safe product from a potentially hazardous product."
