Is it necessary to certify the food safety management system?

Food Safety Management System, abbreviated as FSMS in English, refers to the Food Safety Management System. ISO 22000:2018 is one of the standards for food safety management systems.

With the development of economic globalization and the improvement of social civilization, people are paying more and more attention to food safety issues; organizations involved in the production, operation, and supply of food are required to prove their ability to control food safety hazards and factors affecting food safety. Customer expectations and social responsibility have gradually made organizations involved in food production, operation, and supply realize that there should be standards to guide operations, guarantee, and evaluate food safety management. This demand for standards has driven the creation of food safety management system requirements standards.

Standards serve both as usage guidelines describing the requirements of the food safety management system and as the basis for certification and registration for organizations involved in food production, operation, and supply.

Certification Role
 

1. Enables organized and targeted communication with trade partners.

2. Achieves optimal resource utilization within the organization and the food chain.

3. Improves document resource management.

4. Enhances planning and reduces post-process inspections.

5. More effectively controls dynamic food safety risks.

6. All control measures will undergo risk analysis.

7. Systematic management of essential programs.

8. Due to focus on final results, the standard has a wide scope of application.

9. Can serve as an effective basis for decision-making.

10. Continuously and stably provides end products that meet food safety requirements, satisfying customer demands.

11. More effective dynamic safety risk control of food.

12. Saves resources by reducing redundant system audits.

Certification Background
 

In recent years, the Chinese government has carried out a series of reforms in food safety supervision and governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping once proposed the "Four Strictest" when discussing food safety supervision, emphasizing the use of the strictest standards, strictest supervision, severest penalties, and most serious accountability to accelerate the establishment of a scientific and complete food and drug safety governance system. However, ensuring food safety is a complex systematic project. Due to the specialization and gradual refinement of production division, every link from raw material production, processing, storage, transportation to sales may cause food safety issues.
Enterprises can implement the ISO 22000 Food Safety Management System.

Enterprises that have passed certification have integrated various management systems to meet international standards, indicating that they can continuously and stably provide customers with expected and satisfactory qualified products. In the field of food safety, this can also help enterprises improve the quality of products and services, reduce waste and customer complaints, and prevent food safety problems.

Certification Objectives
 

The objectives of the national food management system are: ① reduce foodborne diseases and protect public health; ② prevent unhygienic, harmful, misleading, or counterfeit food to protect consumer rights; ③ maintain consumer confidence in the food management system by establishing a fully rule-based international or domestic food trade system, thereby promoting economic development.

The food management system should cover the entire process of production, processing, and sales of all foods in a country, including imported foods. The food management system must be based on legal foundations and must be enforced compulsorily.
Most national food management systems consist of five units: ① food legislation; ② food management; ③ food supervision; ④ laboratory testing; ⑤ information, education, communication, and training.