Implementation of Iso 22000 as a Food Safety Management Tools in Wheat Milling Industry

Abstract

Wheat products (flour and semolina) are of great importance in the Egypt diet. Although food poisoning not frequently recorded, it is a very common phenomenon in Egypt. Food poisoning symptoms in the mild stages go unnoticed because the sufferer gets treated for the symptoms that include diarrhea (sometimes bloody), vomiting, nausea or stomach cramps but rarely samples are drawn to identify the cause of the illness. The United States of America and the United Kingdom have more concrete evidence and statistics that can trace the micro-organism involved. The overall view is that food safety receives very little attention although it has been suggested that the food should be safe from farm to fork. Therefore, it is advised that food safety should be controlled by having a food quality management system (FSMS) in place. Such a system includes the pre-requisite programs and a HACCP plan which able to ensure that all factors affect the quality of the product are under control. In terms of the regulations in Egypt, FSMS will become mandatory especially if they want to export to European Union countries since December 1995 and to the United States of America since December 1997. ISO 22000 is used as a tool for trade barrier since it has become a requirement for export. Therefore, there was a need within the milling industry for controlling food safety especially due to customer’s demands and government’s regulations. The best way to ensure food safety was with the implementation of (FSMS) which represented in ISO 22000. Accordingly the principal aim of this study was to develop a generic FSMS model for the flour milling industry. Afterwards this generic model could then be adapted for each specific mill and its needs