Can someone explain the meaning of Release Procedures?

I just had a third party audit of our bakery and the inspector asked if we had release procedures. I am not sure what he was talking about. Anyone that can help me put together a set of procedures would be greatly appreicated.

Dear djfitz,

Probably something like this discussion -

http://www.ifsqn.com...ndpost__p__1191

Personally I always find negative release much simpler.

Rgds / Charles.C

Release procedures, more often referred to as positive release, would be a set of procedures or 'rules' that must be met before a product can be released from production into storage or from production to the consumer. Your procedures must be relevant to and then tailored to your process.

Katie Day

HACCP Specialist
ISO 9001 and ISO 22000 implementer and auditor
Food Safety Consultant

I like positive release (not including micro) where you check all the food safety, legal and quality paperwork prior to release, however, it's not always practicable in today's workplace. I've had it in one site and brought it in at another, however, there has been too much resistance (due to short shelf life) to bring it in at any other site I've worked at, I suspect you might be in a similar situation in bakery.

Release procedures or positive release as stated earlier can vary according to the different products that you make.

It can be the release of a raw material or intermediate to the next stage of the process or release of finished product for dispatch to the customer.

With short shelf life products, positive release on the basis of micro results is less common nowadays, primarily since the introduction of HACCP, and of course it eats into the shelf life. Positive release on micro is still used in long life products such as cans.

Positive release can also be based on attributes other than micro eg chemical, organoleptic and visual.

For bakeries, depending upon your products, the options are probably fairly limited, particularly if you have a continuous process.

The starting point is to list all of the properties of your materials and products which, if you didn't check, you would feel worried if the product got to your customers. Then identify the point in the process you carry out these checks.

Your positive release procedure is then when, by whom and how you do this check together with a positive documented record that the check has been done. If you want you can include a statement such as "Released for Dispatch" or "Released to Oven" but you don't have to.

Not every type of manufacturing is required to have a positive release system. If it suits your process, its OK to not require Positive Release and instead have a policy of "Hold By Exception" i.e. everything that's not rejected/held is automatically released to the next process step - just write it up as such is your procedures. In such a case routine in-line processing inspections even by line employees can be used as support for this, as long as you can demonstrate that you have some type of quality standard and the employees are aware of what to look for and how to reject non-conforming product. And any type of quality checklist can be brought in to further help your cause.

any regulation for categories product?

like CODEX?

pls anyone share