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Food Defense Training
Food defense training is the training given to protect food safety and food resources against undesirable effects. Food defense can be applied at every stage in the food production chain and food manufacturers must develop various strategies to reduce the risks in the production process and ensure the safety of food sources. At this point, food defense training comes into play.
Food defense helps reduce risks from potential threats such as bioterrorism and food fraud. In addition, standards and guidelines are developed to increase the safety of food sources and to improve communication and cooperation between all stakeholders in the food industry. In this way, food manufacturers can provide stronger assurance about the safety of their products.
According to PAS 96:2017, Food Defense is defined as “Practices and procedures applied to ensure the safety of the food, beverage and supply chain from malicious foreseeable attacks that may cause supply chain disruption and contamination”, whereas, according to the FDA, food defense is defined as “ Efforts to prevent deliberate contamination by biological, chemical, physical or radiological agents/agents that are unlikely to occur in the food supply”. The common point in both definitions is the effort to prevent deliberate contamination, which is carried out for deliberate ideological reasons in food defense.
Contrary to the 60-year history of HACCP, food defense or TACCP (Threat Assessment) - Threat assessment is a relatively new subject, but it has started to take its place in food safety management standards with the effect of the crises that have emerged in the last ten years. There are many examples of intentional contamination in the world. One of them took place in a supermarket in Michigan. An employee named Randy Jay Bertram added pesticides to the ground meat to put his supervisor in a difficult situation, 40 children and a pregnant woman and a woman over 67 with heart disease were affected by the incident. There were no deaths by chance in the incident, but those affected experienced long-term health problems. Bertram was sentenced to 9 years in prison and ordered to pay $2,000 to pay the damages.
Although critical control points are emphasized on the basis of food defense, TACCP (Threat Assessment), as in HACCP, the logic of the analysis is not based on critical control point determination systematic. Food defense is managed in TACCP with hazards risk analysis and risk mitigation plans.
While HACCP aims to assess unintentional food safety risks, TACCP focuses on deliberate interventions to food.
The main reasons for intentional contamination to the food source are;
• Creating significant public health problems,
• Spreading fear among the public,
• Creating negative economic impact
• To destroy the public's trust in food safety and the effectiveness of official institutions,
• To disrupt trade,
• Increasing “food insecurity” gradually.
Food defense training is addressed as a separate requirement in GFSI approved standards when it comes to safe food.
· For IFS Food Standard V7, Article 6 is a separate title as Food Defense Plan.
In the latest version of BRCGS, V9, food defense has been handled as a separate topic in 4.2 and its importance has been increased.
· Article 4.4 of BRCGS Packaging Standard V6. It is detailed under the title of Field Security and Product Defense.
· FSSC 22000 Version 5.1 FSSC Additional requirements Clause 2.5.3. It gives a requirement as Food Defense
These three standards, which are GFSI approved and most preferred in Turkey, require specific knowledge, competent and/or trained personnel for those who will work on food defense training. It is also the most basic proof of your competence and specific knowledge.
As an IFS approved Training Center, Suswise provides Food Defense Training with IFS approval. IFS approved trainings;
· You receive from competent instructors approved by the accreditation body. What does this mean? It means that the authority and experience of the trainer has been evaluated and accepted by the accreditation institution. This means that you will get the experience and competence of food defense training.
· At the end of the Food Defense Training, you will receive an international certificate in English and Turkish. You can use this certificate anywhere in the world. You can think of it this way, you can show it to all your customers and certification bodies as a competency and use it in your job applications, just as your customers all over the world accept it when you receive a GFSI-approved document in your system.
· Whether you are IFS, BRCGS or FSSC certified, you can use the IFS approved training certificate as proof of competence in all these audits.
The only institution that accredits Food Defense Training is IFS.
· You do not pay additional fees for an IFS approved training certificate.
What we tell in our IFS Approved Food Defense Training;
· Basic definitions and goals
· International legal regulations and guidelines
· Basic risk assessment tools
Food defense in terms of GFSI and standards
Food Defense policy
Food defense team
· Context evaluation
Determination of food defense plan preventive measures
· Plan and flow chart
· Risk assessment,
· Tracing
· Alarm (warning) management
· System verification
You can click on the link below to register for the Food Defense training prepared by the Suswise Training Center: