Risk Assessment Help

Hi,
I know I have been here before but I just feel totally lost trying to carry out risk assessments. It is not something which I have done before. Can anyone give me some help or pointers on carrying out the risk assessments that are required for the global standard for food safety version 5? Any help and I mean any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi HC,

If you are totally lost with risk assessments I think you should look into having some formal training in HACCP and risk assessments. I’m sure members will be able to recommended suitable training courses if you are interested.

Regards,
Simon

Hi, yes i am receiving training later in the yeat but thought it might be good to try and get ahead. You know what its like. Thank you for your input.

Hi, yes i am receiving training later in the yeat but thought it might be good to try and get ahead. You know what its like. Thank you for your input.

Anyone know of a good basic primer for conducting risk assessments that might be of help to Highland Chick?

Regards,
Simon

Dear Hchick,

Don’t know if you can call these primers. The fact is that the BRC requirement will probably vary from “very detailed” for HACCP to “very basic” (or none) for others (ie minimum acceptable).
The former is pretty well covered these forums already IMO so I added only one more (last one). For the latter "basic", here are some examples to add to already donated. These are specifically designed to (prob.minimally) comply with, particularly for UK, employer’s/organiser’s responsibilities. Nonetheless they do well illustrate the philosophy involved. Topics vary. Hopefully they will give some ideas.

risk_assessment___5_basic_steps.pdf   78.24KB   1922 downloads
Risk_Assessment_for_your_Shoot0.htm   58.58KB   1195 downloads
risk_assessment_for_shoot2.pdf   24.43KB   827 downloads
Risk_Assessment_student_activities.doc   296.5KB   685 downloads
risk_assessment___Cleaning_and_pest_control.pdf   934.8KB   1689 downloads
risk_assessment_haccp_fish_industry.pdf   422.01KB   1035 downloads
(last one has chapters 1 and 2 only, rest is here if interested - http://www.fao.org/d...00.htm#Contents
)

Rgds / Charles.C

added -

I think you will observe that there are various major differences between the “simplified” procedures used in the examples above and the typical HACCP approach, eg –

1. the assessment of risk is “intuitive” .
2. Monitoring frequencies / corrective actions are apparently not particularly linked to any relative risk evaluations although the first guidance link recommends prioritisation.

Such aspects are where “expert’ advice starts to become necessary, ie things get more difficult (or perhaps just more subjective)

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   1046 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=10184

and a few more here -

http://www.ifsqn.com...showtopic=10674

Any further BRC (or other) user’s input / experience is (highly) invited.

Rgds / Charles.C

Wow thanks Charles.

Is this helpful Highland Chick?

Hi Charles.C thank you so much for all that information it was soo helpful. You have provided me with so much information that i can take and relate to areas of my business. Thank you ssooo much again

Hello Charles,

I know this post is quite old but Thank you for your ideas/resources that you have shared above.

Cheers,

-Cory

@ Simon: VERY helpful!

can anyone share a template on haccp risk analysis matrix? thank you.