Food Safety and Public Health Services
What is Food Defence and TACCP? Food defence and TACCP consider measures implemented by food companies to protect the food against intentional contamination by individuals normally motivated by hatred, an ideology, disagreement, or any other malicious intent. Organisations, therefore, implement a Threat Assessment Critical Control Point (TACCP), which is …
GlobalG.A.P. has introduced the new GlobalG.A.P. IFA V5.4. The constantly changing market demands pertaining to food safety practices in this rapidly changing global economy have accelerated into major adjustments of policies, regulations, and standards. It is for this reason that GlobalG.A.P. is continuously making efforts of updating its assessment criteria …
The Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000) requires organizations to ensure implementation and continual review of Food Safety Culture. The requirement is that the organisation needs to show evidence that the senior management is committed to ensuring implementation, maintenance, and continual improvement of the food safety management system, and …
Food safety culture goes beyond the need to comply with standard requirements; it is more about the behavioural attitude towards daily activities in an organisation that is committed to ensuring food safety. An organisation that has strong food safety culture puts consumer safety at the core of its business. What …
GlobalG.A.P. is a farm certification scheme that promotes good agricultural practices and the production of primary products in a safe manner while taking into account worker welfare and health. What is GlobalG.A.P.? Global Good Agricultural Practice (GlobalG.A.P.) is an internationally recognised certification standard that promotes Good Agricultural Practices under a …
Quality is providing services or products that are not inferior, meets and exceeds the required standards, and fits the purpose. Quality has two terms; Quality Control and Quality Assurance. Although the two terms seem similar, they mean different things that we shall explain below. What is Quality Assurance? Quality Assurance …
In November 2020, FSSC 22000 published a new FSSC 22000 version to align with the latest GFSI requirements. The new FSSC 22000 V5.1 will come into effect on 1 April 2021, and all sites must be audited against Version 5.1 by 31 March 2022. There are only a few changes …
The main difference between ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 is that ISO 22000 is not GFSI recognised and FSSC 22000 is GFSI recognised. What does this mean and is it important? Other differences lie in the composition of ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 standards. Let’s have a look at each and …
Primary health care is the first contact that communities make with the country’s national health system. It is the first constituent of the health care system. Primary healthcare is meant to facilitate health care provision as close as possible to where communities are. The main focus areas of primary healthcare …
The WHO defines primary healthcare as a concept that considers individuals’ holistic health care needs and their communities. The major components of primary health care are an adequate supply of water, sanitation and health education. These components have never been more critical than now during the COVID-19 pandemic. Good hand …
South Africa is one of the countries where the Public Health System structure was transformed into a district health system. The aim was to deliver health services to people following primary healthcare principles and guidelines. Primary health care is the first contact that communities make with their national health system. …
On 3 November 2020, the Foundation FSSC 22000 has published Version 5.1 of its FSSC 22000 certification Scheme. The main reasons for an updated version are compliance with the latest benchmarking requirements of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and strengthened requirements for Certification Body (CB) performance as part of …
ASC Consultants has introduced a new online food safety courses to make it convenient for persons working in food handling facilities to acquire the necessary skills. The first available course is the Regulation R638 Food Safety Course for the persons in charge of food premises. The learner can take this …
ASC Public Health and Food Safety Consultants’ article in the Daily Maverick highlights the impact of Food Fraud on Public Health.
ASC Consultants has developed readymade FSSC 22000 V6 audited documentation toolkits to help organisations develop a comprehensive Food Safety Management System in line with the FSSC 22000 Version 6 requirements. FSSC 22000 stands for Food Safety System Certification and is a GFSI recognised scheme. The Foundation for Food Safety System Certification …
COVID-19 has introduced a new style of living where each person must take responsibility for their own health and hygiene. These days you hardly find someone who has not heard of the word “sanitising”, “disinfection” or “sterilisation”. Hand sanitisers are flying off the shelves and at some point, some retailers …
Our family loves traditional gatherings celebrated around overloaded lunch tables with every imaginable dish prepared and shared to suit our individual tastes, including my niece’s latest vegan obsession running in tandem to her allergy to peanuts. A recent food poisoning catastrophe which nearly ended in a family fatality brought my …
It’s the citrus fruit season in South Africa and citrus packhouses are abuzz packing citrus fruits, which they mainly export. South Africa is the second-largest exporter of citrus fruits in the world, second only to Spain. Based on production volumes, citrus fruits are the most produced fruits in South Africa. …
COVID-19 or Coronavirus is a virus that causes respiratory disease and can be fatal for people with pre-existing chronic conditions and weakened immune systems. You can reduce your chances of being infected or spreading COVID-19 by taking some simple precautions: Related Articles Check out our other related articles for more …
Food safety is critical to ensuring consumer safety and trust. This is why proper training in food handling, becomes more important for enterprises in food preparation, processing or production. It is vital to train food handlers on hygiene because food safety is compromised when hygiene is neglected and not given …