A topic that is becoming more and more fashionable around the world and is not necessarily exclusive to the meat industry risk analysis. This discipline is implemented to further reduce foodborne illness (FBD) and, in turn, strengthen safety systems. harmlessness of these.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) explains that “the general objective of risk analysis applied to food safety is to ensure the protection of human health.”
During the last few years, risk analysis It is included in the health regulations of many countries, and also in the documents of various standardization bodies at the international level.
This system includes three essential phases: risk assessment, management and communication; In this way, they were formalized and integrated into a specific discipline known as “risk analysis related to food safety”.
This methodology has been widely accepted, to the extent that it has become a favorite instrument for assessing possible connections between existing risks in food chainsuch as meat, and the real risks to human health that could be posed by our processes and in all links of the chain.
This takes into account the enormous variety of elements that intervene in making decisions about appropriate prevention and control measures.
This approach can be applied by governments at the macro level and is used to establish food standards and other food control measures. Risk analysis encourages a scientific assessment of any subject to be regulated and, with this scientific evidence of the risks, governments can establish means to manage those risks both nationally and in the industries involved.
Finally, the entire process of risk assessment and management can be transferred to the population for their awareness, prevention and control, either through educational campaigns and health warnings.
Security systems
On the other hand, we can implement this methodology in our processing plants. Carnewhich allows us to quantify all risks and dangers in every stage of production and processing.
Managing them involves the application of various security systems known as good manufacturing practices (GMP), microbiological performance standards, veterinary inspection, sanitary standard operating procedures (SOP), hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP), hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls (HARPC).
These systems must be selected and implemented in accordance with the commercial needs of each company and the risks identified in its assessment. Finally, in our companies we can communicate risk internally and externally to our employees and clients, with training and health education.
It is therefore clear that risk analysis prepares an assessment of the risk to human health, identifies and applies appropriate measures for its control, and informs all interested parties about the measures applied both at the level of the state and at the level of individuals of our companies.
This concept of risk analysis that the United States in its Food Safety and Inspection System Modernization Act modified the use of the traditional HACCP system for a HARPC-based system of hazard analysis and preventive controls, stating that better results can be achieved if preventive controls based on process risk analysis are applied , which when critical control points (CCP) are applied in processes.
It is also conducted to support and improve the development of science-based standards, as well as to address safety issues. food safety resulting from new hazards or imbalances in their management systems.
In turn, it provides those responsible for food safety control with the information and evidence they need to make effective decisions, which will contribute to improved food safety and public health outcomes, which will translate into better products, greater customer confidence in our products and better economic income.
Regardless of the institutional context in which it is used, as a state or as an industry, the discipline of risk analysis allows us to achieve significant progress in the health standard of our products, protecting the health of consumers and conquering new internal and external markets.
Finally, I would like to say that there is no such thing as zero risk and hazards will always have a probability of occurring, but the more safety management systems we apply, the better the result will be to control the occurrence of all these hazards with the previously provided benefits.
Given the complex relationship between humans and animals, it is likely that new dangers and risks for which we are not prepared will appear every time. I think the biggest example of this postulate is the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 which changed our way of life and thinking and subjected us to a new normal that no one could have imagined a year ago. I think it is clear to everyone that we were not prepared to face this new danger or risks to our health and our economies.
