Food innovation constantly floods the food and beverage (F&B) industry with exciting new products, making it crucial to ensure that the quality of these food products comply with all federal and state safety standards.
According to an article about food safety and quality by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, if it is not safe, it is not food. Everyone must have access to sufficient high-quality, nutritious, and safe food. And food safety and quality assurance require interdisciplinary expertise coming from a wide range of experts.
There are multitudes of safety hazards that exist in food products that can cause grievous injury or disease to the human body. Food safety and the ensuing food quality are important because food is a basic necessity – it must sustain and nourish the body and not harm it.
How can food safety and quality be ascertained?
A food hazard assessment tool can be employed to identify and detect seeming physical, biological, and chemical hazards in food products and finding ways to prevent or control these food hazards. It is not only the end-product of the food which needs safety assessment, but also the whole process of food production. This is because foodborne illnesses do not come solely from finished food products. Contamination and hazardous elements can infiltrate at any stage of food picking, storage, transportation, and processing. Afflictions at each stage of the food going from the farm and factory to the table must be controlled and prevented.
After determining the key quality attributes defined for a particular food product, metrics to measure the food product’s safety and quality should be applied. When you integrate both food safety and quality, every step and decision involving food must be scrutinized. Food production and food processing have become very complex. It involves an intricate interplay of processes that can disrupt the balance between safe and unsafe food. To know more about it, you can enroll in the Food Product Development certificate program offered by Genashtim in collaboration with eCornell.
eCornell courses are approved by SkillsFuture Singapore for SkillsFuture Credit as well as by HRD Corp Malaysia under its HRD Corp Claimable Course Scheme.