Dear Highlind Chick,
This is an extension of previous post.
As a very crude summary of the preceding posted information on “simplified” risk assessment, you might say that the process consists of (1) defining a required objective relating to some kind of hazard (or more precisely risk) and then (2) explaining / demonstrating how your existing preventive system minimises that risk. The latter should obviously be justifiable by the acquired results.
As an example of the simplest format, I found this oldish but nice document provided by NZFSA relating to Validation of Pest Management Programs for Dairy Products –
validation_pest_management_NZFSA.htm 31.75KB
1074 downloads
This is primarily intended for auditors and specifies (6 – 8) what are considered the minimum requirements for a system which fulfils this purpose –
Each dairy manufacturer and dairy store must ensure that pests do not infest, spoil or contaminate dairy products, and that the application of pesticides in the environment of dairy food processing facilities or stores does not endanger product safety.
A later “qualitative” comment conveniently includes the “risk” element –
The assessor shall check that the pest management programme is implemented and maintained in a manner that provides the company with assurance that pests will be managed and controlled to minimise the risk of product contamination.
The interpretation of the previous quote will inevitably depend on the precise application. In the present case BRC already includes some specific parameters in the standard which they (presumably) consider absolutely necessary. Any quantitation / further expansion is left to your own judgement unlike the more semi- prescriptive list in my above link, eg what is an acceptable max. level for you of trapped flies / week ? 1, 100? Species ?
My quess is that ascending to the level of
HACCP where specific risk letters / numbers are used is not required for many of the other items although some form of control quantitation, eg max. defect rates, may be. The latter, fortunately
, tends to be just as subjective as a lot of
HACCP risk assessment IMEX.
added - where BRC does give specifics, the most common requirement is, I think, that the inspection frequency be correlated to the risk evaluation so presumably cannot avoid some quantitation for those factors. The simplest choices are probably by straight classification via ongoing numerical results > eg grade A,B,C with appropriate sampling frequency or via defect type analysis, eg minor/major/serious/critical and thereby determining A,B,C again (analogous to the 5th example of prev.post). Much more comprehensive versions exist as previously mentioned if you are enthusiastic for elaboration.
added(2) - Just in case, you haven't already seen the thread, there are various practical comments on this BRC topic (started by Eugene) here -
http://www.ifsqn.com...showtopic=10184and a few more here -
http://www.ifsqn.com...showtopic=10674Any further BRC (or other) user’s input / experience is (highly) invited.
Rgds / Charles.C
