Food Safety and Hygiene Regulations for Food Processing Businesses

Ever-tightening policies and regulations today make it essential for companies handling food to take appropriate measures for prevention, early detection, and control of pests in food and food supplies. Complying with food processing regulations and hygiene regulations can help avert pest issues.

The new Food Safety Modernisation Act 2011 (FSMA) - which moved to the end of phase 1 in August 2015 for preventative standards for human food and animal food - puts more emphasis on the global food chain, food chain compliance and a risk-based approach to food safety management, both in factories and in the end-to-end supply chain for foodstuffs.

Increasingly the approach is moving from an HACCP to HARPC - Hazard Analysis Risk-Based Prevention Control method - to present a more practical approach to food safety, designed to address “Farm to Fork” risk, rather than just those in food processing facilities. this includes:

• evaluating hazards to food safety
• identifying and implementing preventive controls to PREVENT hazards
• monitoring controls and maintaining control records
• conducting verification activities

The emphasis is now on management through a reactive approach, focusing on the root cause of a potential hazard, not on elimination. This means that for pest control, site expertise and pest risk assessments will be critical.

Rentokil Steritech Steritech is your professional partner when it comes to evaluating risks to food safety presented by pests and has decades of experience in controlling pest risks in compliance with industry best practice and statutory obligations including:

• Individual State Food Safety Act(s) and regulations
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)
• FDA regulations and restrictions
• Organic farming regulation and industry standards
• Occupational Safety Act

Our experts can advise you on the use of appropriate monitoring or non-toxic systems in highly sensitive production and storage areas, where the use of poisonous bait for rodent control is not permitted.

We support you in assessing and managing risk through a rigorous Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach:

Know the standards requirements:

In collaboration with your pest management provider conduct comprehensive reviews of the program just prior to the audit addressing the below points:

Ensure your pest control expert conducts a pest activity trend analysis prior to the audit window:

Ensure all recommendations and findings have documented corrective actions and have been followed up on, including: