ISO22000 was recently launched as the all-new global standard for food safety management. Its stated aim is to become the truly internationally recognised standard for the food industry.
Unlike other similar standards, ISO 22000 has been written so that it can be applied to all organisations in the food supply chain, from primary producers through processing, storage and distribution, retail and catering, as well as inter-related organisations such as equipment and additives producers.
It has been a long time coming and indeed is not the first attempt to introduce an international food standard, many of which have failed to make the overall cross-industry impact due to sector restrictions or limited adoption across different countries and continents.
Nobody denies that ISO 22000 can potentially fulfil a valuable role in harmonising the approach to food safety standards while at the same time appealing to all sectors in the food chain. This has led to a lot of interest around the world with representatives from 14 countries sitting on the working group, including organisations such as the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), the European Confederation of the Food and Drink Industry (CIAA) and the Codex Alimentarius.
In essence ISO 22000 requires an organisation to demonstrate its ability to manage food safety hazards and provide consistently safe products that meet both the customer’s requirements and those of food safety regulations.Throughout the world, food safety is one of the most important issues in the food supply chain and ISO 22000 provides both an opportunity toachieve international harmonisation in the field of food safety standards and a tool to build on HACCP throughout the food supply chain as a standard that is suitable for all industry stakeholders.
One of the key questions is will ISO 22000 simply become just another of the preferred standards in selected parts of the global market, led by some retailers and manufacturers? Alternatively could it become the platform from which the food industry addresses the not inconsiderable challenges it faces going forward into the next decade?
Strategically, in terms of global trade, traceability, brand and stakeholder values, and tactically, in relation to enforcement, quality and consumer issues there are many positive attributes in the standard for industry to ponder. As business demands become more acute and the need to demonstrate technical and legal capabilities in the delivery of safe food become paramount and form part of overall brand and social responsibility messages, ISO 22000 could provide an independently certified route to demonstrating compliance to legislation and market place requirements.
On a practical level it could be asked why the major retailers, manufacturers and other specifiers should rush to adopt or require the new standard as a condition of supply? Currently, own label retailers in the UK are happy with the British Retail Consortium Global Food Standard Issue 4, as are the German and French retailers content with the IFS Standard, while EurepGAP is a further respected international standard for agricultural produce.
Retailers have developed, supported and progressively refined these other standards for many years now to meet their particular due diligence and supplier assurance requirements with specific guidance on good manufacturing practices and compliance levels. This observation becomes more acute, particularly, if considered against the fact that ISO 22000 does not have detailed guidance on requirements for good practice. This does not necessarily mean the existing standards need be potentially at “odds” with ISO 22000 or require duplication of assessments if existing and proven GMPs can be illustrated and if in the longer term there is role for equivalency acceptance.
As an internationally recognised global standard the ISO 22000 initiative is likely to be of interest to a large and diverse number of companies, providing it contributes to increased due diligence, improved commercial benefits and potentially increased brand protection with the overall aim that, in time, it becomes a recognisable mark of achievement for business-to-business trade.
The disciplines and rigour of the new standard have readily recognisable intrinsic value to large, multi-sited organisations and this is most likely to be recognised by the major international manufacturers, at least some of whom will adopt it as a progressive step forward to build on the current HACCP based approach to food safety. For other organisations, the inherent value of ISO 22000 in terms of actually raising standards of performance will be less attractive than the potential marketing opportunities it presents, particularly for those who supply to parts of the world outside Europe, notably the US, where there is a lack of strong competitively established legal and technical standards, driven by the buying and specifier groups.
Alternatively, in emerging markets, including the new entrants into the EU and Far East countries, ISO 22000 presents an important opportunity for manufacturers to show potential customers they have stepped up to the mark in terms of food safety management standards.
While much of the focus to date has been around the manufacturing supply chain, there will be also be opportunities and candidates for the use of the standard amongst the agriculture, distribution, healthcare, institutional catering, hospitality catering and leisure sectors seeking management control, competitive and marketing advantages.
The key benefit of ISO 22000 is that it is not prescriptive to a given sector and that it can be adopted by all sectors of the food industry to demonstrate compliance to an international food safety management standard. Could it be that catering contracts for the London 2012 Olympic Games are awarded only to ISO 22000 accredited companies?
Within the UK and other EU countries a more discrete driver and benefit could be the link to co-regulation and the concept of “earned autonomy”. Co-regulation is emerging as an important issue in 2006 to regulators around the world and, particularly in the UK, regulators are looking for ways to reduce their enforcement burden enabling them to focus their resources to better effect eg. on the persistent or wilfully poor performers. This shift in emphasis would allow the proven parts of the food industry to self-regulate through a formal certification initiative. ISO 22000 could well prove to be the baseline standard that allows all sectors of the industry to demonstrate their food safety management credentials.
Where to next? For many companies it will be a time to watch and carefully evaluate, as details of the standard emerge and are analysed and discussed throughout the whole supply chain and track the early standard adopters as they are identified. Where they lead, others may choose, or have to follow. The key for marketing and quality executives in all these companies will be in determining whether ISO 22000 is right for them - and here it will be important to seek commercial and technical advice on questions of competitive advantage, cost and implementation requirements, timings and overall business benefit. In judging these benefits, equal regard should be given to internal and private brand benefits, as well those of customers and own label brands
However, there is little doubt that with the international influence and background in quality standards of ISO behind it, 22000 could rapidly establish itself as an important and influential standard. So who will be taking up the challenge of ISO 22000 and why?
CMi, a leading provider of independent assurance and certification services to the food industry and acknowledged industry expert, has been close to the development process of ISO 22000, as part of the UKAS pilot study into its application. We will be one of the first companies to be certifying to the standard. At this early stage we strongly advise any organisation that thinks this standard may be relevant to them to examine in detail the full implications and consider how best to implement the systems to support the standard by seeking professional advice if necessary.
David Edwards is director CMi Consulting.
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