Defining Food Quality and Food Safety

Food safety and food quality terminology may sometimes be confusing. Quality includes all product attributes that influence a products’ value to consumers.

This can include positive attributes such as flavor or pleasing appearance. It is also includes such negative attributes as spoilage contamination with nontoxic and noninfectious filth, discoloration, and odors.

If all quality attributes were detectable to consumers, then markets would determine the quality supplied.

The term quality has become a focus point in all discussion regarding the production and provision of food products to markets and consumers – quality in the broad sense of serving the consumers’ needs by producing them with the right product at the right time and with the right service.

The distinction between safety and quality has implication for public policy, Safety refers to hazards to human health in food. Quality refers to all attributes and thus might include safety.

Food safety is an inherent element of quality. It receives special attention by policy and legislation because of its key importance for consumers’ health and the responsibility for food safety by private and policy alike.

Food safety is the extent to which those requirements relating specifically to characteristics or properties that have potential to be harmful to health or to cause illness or injury are met,

It is convenient to separate food safety from more general quality issues. Public efforts should focus in health hazards and quality issues can be left to private industry management.

One reason why distinction is difficult in practice is that many quality attributes are not detectable. Market failure occur for quality attributes other than food safety.

Quality grades and standards can be voluntary or mandatory, When they are mandatory they can be a disguised means of limiting supply and increasing producer profits.

The distinction between food quality and food safety needs to be made primarily because of the much greater importance that must be attached to protecting consumers from food borne illness or injuries.
Defining Food Quality and Food Safety

Managing safety and quality

In practice, private management of quality and safety is increasingly complex and intertwined. There is a growing of process control approaches from farm to table in food production for industrial country markets.

Among all food enterprise, the large food retailer, eager to portray their industry as trustworthy, are tending to take greater responsibility for the safety of the food they sells.

The management of safety of a subset of more general quality management. Evaluation of food quality requires standards for each product served and a systematic process for evaluating food items to see that standards were met.

The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) system is used to address hazards that can be introduced at different points in the food chain or are difficult to measure.

The HACCP system focuses on prevention and control of hazards, rather than on end product testing.

It made its way into food system area and has continued as the standard for keeping food safe to consume.
An advantage of HACCP is to focus resources on the most important control pints, which can minimize resources used to improve safety.

HACCP’s main thrust is identifying critical control points that could affect quality or safety or f the food during procurement, processing and delivery of the finished food products and providing standards for each.

Properly applied, HACCP may lead to process redesign, which can reduce the cost of providing quality.

However assessment of food quality is not only a system selection question but a continuous quality improvement.

The acceptance of food by customer is the ultimate measure of quality. The customer interested in the quality of the product not the type of food production system.
Managing safety and quality

Quality and Safety of Food on Airplane

Quality and Safety of Food on Airplane
Serving quality airplane food is a logistical challenge. If the number or variety of meals needed is inaccurately calculated, customer dissatisfaction ensues.

Complicating this challenge is the large selection of speciality meals available including diabetic gluten-free, Hindu, kosher, lacto-ovo vegetarian, low fat, low sodium, Muslim, lactose free, vegan and vegetarian.

Despite the limitation of space, cooking technology, and cost, efforts are made to serve airline food consistent with a typical meal, especially on long flights encompassing one or more mealtimes.

Such a meal may consist of a main dish protein item, vegetable, starch, salad, roll and dessert.

A meal served in coach or economy class on a transoceanic United Airlines flight consisted of chicken breast with white sauce, broccoli, carrots, wild rice, crackers worth cheese, a salad, a roll and strawberry ice cream.

Airline food is tightly regulated and monitored to avoid highly allergenic foods as well as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) food safety violations.

While not as critical, airlines also avoid particularly strong or potentially offensive foods such as raw onions and items like beans that are likely to cause flatulence.

As the airline industry strives for ever greater efficiency, aircraft are at the gate for increasingly short time periods. During this intensive period of refueling, cleaning, and aircraft maintenance, in flight caterers must be at the ready to load a well calculated number of meals, as well as snacks beverages, specialty meals and crew meals. All at proper temperatures for food safety.

Any misstep can cause a flight delay, and as timeliness ranks second only to passenger and crew safety in importance, a late caterer – or worse, one serving food that physically, chemically or biologically contaminated – can trigger millions of dollars in lawsuits lost revenue and lost contracts.
Quality and Safety of Food on Airplane

Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality

Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality
The international recognition of systems for safety and for food quality management has resulted in the need to adopt terminology that can be interpreted in a uniform and consistent manner.

The systems for food safety and for quality management that have been adopted by international organizations such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have been based on fundamental principles developed by recognized experts or recognized scientific or professional organizations.

As a result, there is now standardized vocabulary in the field of food quality assurance.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.

The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations.

International Organization for Standardization ISO is the world largest standards developing organization.

Between 1947 and the present day, ISO has published more than 17500 International Standards, ranging from standards for activities such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, to medical devices, to the newest information technology developments.
Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality