Assurance of food safety with new ISO 2200

The safety of our food is of great importance. Incidents often lead to a lot of commotion and publicity. With about 200 diseases spread through the food chain, the chance of an incident is certainly present. Also through the globalization of production and trade. Safe and sustainable food production deserves all attention. There are risks up to and including the moment of consumption. All parties involved in food production must therefore perform maximum risk management.

The new ISO 22000: 2018, Food safety management systems – Requirements for any organization in the food chain, just like ISO 9001, is adapted to the High-Level Structure of ISO, which makes it easier to connect different systems. Also – of course – reference is made to the “Codex Alimentarius” of the United Nations.

Step-by-step risk management
Part of the risk management methodology are the so-called HACCP principles (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points); seven steps to identify risks and develop measures for monitoring, measurement and recovery actions. HACCP was devised in the US at the time to safeguard the food safety of astronauts and to prevent a mission from failing due to food poison.

The professional textile service industry has developed its own step-by-step plan based on HACCP, namely the EN 14065 Risk Analysis Biocontamination Control; a HACCP approach, but now specifically focused on industrial laundry. The standard ensures that the cleaned textiles are “suitable for the intended use”. Whether it concerns health care, hospitality and recreation or the food industry.

Strong combination
The CERCLEAN® and CERTEX® quality schemes offer a strong combination in which both ISO 9001 and EN 14065 come together and are elaborated in specific requirements and recommendations tailored to professional textile care. Complemented with microbiological criteria that guarantee the hygienic quality of the cleaned textiles. CERCLEAN® and CERTEX®-certified companies can therefore guarantee customers and users of textile packages that this critical control point can be ticked off for them!

With CERCLEAN® and CERTEX®, the requirements of ISO 22000 are actually fulfilled! This contributes to the prevention of recall actions such as Kellogs in the US had to perform very recently.