FOOD SAFETY

The International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9001:2008 series describes standards for a QMS addressing the principles and processes surrounding the design, development and delivery of a general product or service. Organizations can participate in a continuing certification process to ISO 9001:2000 to demonstrate their compliance with the standard, which includes a requirement for continual (i.e. planned) improvement of the QMS.
(ISO 9001:2008 provides guidance on Quality principles and on the common language used by quality professionals. ISO 9004:2000 provides guidance on improvement methods. It can be seen that neither of these standards can be used for certification purposes as they provide guidance, not requirements).
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a competition to identify and recognize top-quality U.S. companies. This model addresses a broadly based range of quality criteria, including commercial success and corporate leadership. Once an organization has won the award it has to wait several years before being eligible to apply again.
The European Foundation for Quality Management's EFQM Excellence Model supports an award scheme similar to the Malcolm Baldrige Award for European companies.
In Canada, the National Quality Institute presents the 'Canada Awards for Excellence' on an annual basis to organisations that have displayed outstanding performance in the areas of Quality and Workplace Wellness, and have met the Institute's criteria with documented overall achievements and results.
The Alliance for Performance Excellence is a network of state, local, and international organizations that use the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria and model at the grassroots level to improve the performance of local organizations and economies. NetworkforExcellence.org is the Alliance web site; browsers can find Alliance members in their state and get the latest news and events from the Baldrige community.
source: www.wikipedia.org

A quality management system (QMS) is a set of policies, processes and procedures required for planning and execution (production / development / service) in the core business area of an organization. QMS integrates the various internal processes within the organization and intends to provide a process approach for project execution. QMS enables the organizations to identify, measure, control and improve the various core business processes that will ultimately lead to improved business performance.
source
www.wikipedia.org

There are many cases of banned pesticides or carcinogens found in foods.
Greenpeace exposed in 2006 in China that 25% of surveyed supermarkets agricultural products contained banned pesticides. Over 70% of tomatoes that tested were found to have the banned pesticide Lindane, and almost 40% of the samples had a mix of three or more types of pesticides.Fruits were also tested in this investigation. Tangerines, strawberries and Kyofung grapes samples were found contaminated by banned pesticides, including the highly toxic Methamidophos. These fruits can also be found in Hong Kong market.[2] Greenpeace says there exists no comprehensive monitoring on fruit produce in the Hong Kong as of 2006.
In India, soft drinks were found contaminated with high levels of pesticides and insecticides, including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos.[3]
Even Quality Assurance International, a USDA certified organization, in July 2008 QAI had mistakenly certified as organic powdered ginger produced in China, which tests showed was contaminated with the banned pesticide Aldicarb. [4]
News of Formaldehyde, a carcinogen was found in Vietnamese national dish, Pho, broke in 2007 Vietnam food scare. Vegetables and fruits were also found to have banned pesticides. "Health agencies have known that Vietnamese soy sauce, the country's second most popular sauce after fish sauce, has been chock full of cancer agents since at least 2001," thundered the Thanh Nien daily. "Why didn't anyone tell us?"[5] The carcinogen in Asian sauces is 3-MCPD and its metabolite 1,3-DCP, which has been an ongoing problem before 2000 affecting multiple continents.
2005 Indonesia food scare, carcinogenic formaldehyde was added as a preservative to noodles, tofu, salted fish, and meatballs.
2008 Chinese milk scandal.

Sourse: www.wikipedia.org

Environmental contaminants are chemicals that are present in the environment in which the food is grown, harvested, transported, stored, packaged, processed, and consumed. The physical contact of the food with its environment results in its contamination. Possible sources of contamination are:
Air: radionuclides (137Caesium, 90Strontium), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH).
Water: arsenic, mercury.
Soil: cadmium, nitrates, perchlorates.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) , dioxins, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) are ubiquitous chemicals, which are present in air, water, soil, and the entire biosphere.
Packaging materials: antimony, tin, lead, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), semicarbazide, benzophenone, isopropylthioxanthone (ITX), bisphenol A.
Processing/cooking equipment: copper, or other metal chips, lubricants, cleaning and sanitizing agents.
Naturally occurring toxins: mycotoxins, phytohaemagglutinin, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, grayanotoxin, mushroom toxins, scombrotoxin (histamine), ciguatera, shellfish toxins (see shellfish poisoning), tetrodotoxin, among many others.

Agrochemicals are chemicals used in agricultural practices and animal husbandry with the intent to increase crops and reduce costs. Such agents include pesticides (e.g. insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides), plant growth regulators, veterinary drugs (e.g. nitrofuran, fluoroquinolones, malachite green, chloramphenicol), and bovine somatotropin (rBST).

sourse: www.wikipedia.org

Food contamination refers to the presence in food of harmful chemicals and microorganisms which can cause consumer illness. This article addresses the chemical contamination of foods, as opposed to microbiological contamination, which can be found under Foodborne illness. A separate issue is Genetically modified food, or the presence in foods of ingredients from Genetically modified organisms, also referred to as a form of food contamination.

Soap and detergents
The application of water alone is inefficient for cleaning skin because water is often unable to remove fats, oils, and proteins, which are components of organic soil. To remove pathogens, two gallon of water per minute is needed in washing hands using flowing water.
Therefore, removal of microorganisms from skin requires the addition of soaps or detergents to water. Currently most products sold as "soaps" are actually detergents, so that is the substance most used to wash hands.

Water Temperature
Hot water that is comfortable for washing hands is not hot enough to kill bacteria. However, warm, soapy water is more effective than cold, soapy water at removing the natural oils on your hands which hold soils and bacteria.

Solid Soap
Solid soap, because of its reusable nature, may hold bacteria acquired from previous uses, so it's important to wash the soap itself before and after use.
Hand washing with contaminated soap could colonize the hands with Gram-negative bacteria, which results in an increase in bacterial counts on the skin.

Antibacterial soap
Antibacterial soaps have been heavily promoted to a health-conscious public. To date, there is no evidence that using recommended antiseptics or disinfectants selects for antibiotic-resistant organisms in nature. However, antibacterial soaps contain common antibacterial agents such as Triclosan, which has an extensive list of resistant strains of organisms. So, even if antibacterial soaps aren't selected for antibiotic resistant strains, they might not be as effective as they are marketed to be.
A comprehensive analysis from the University of Oregon School of Public Health indicated that plain soaps are as effective as consumer-grade anti-bacterial soaps containing triclosan in preventing illness and removing bacteria from the hands.

Techniques

Foodborne illness (also foodborne disease and colloquially referred to as food poisoning) is any illness resulting from the consumption of food.
There are two types of food poisoning: food infection and food intoxication. Food infection refers to the presence of bacteria or other microbes which infect the body after consumption. Food intoxication refers to the ingestion of toxins contained within the food, including bacterially produced exotoxins, which can happen even when the microbe that produced the toxin is no longer present or able to cause infection. In spite of the common term food poisoning, most cases are caused by a variety of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, prions or parasites that contaminate food,[1] rather than chemical or natural toxins.

Every year there are about 76 million foodborne illnesses in the United States (26,000 cases for 100,000 inhabitants), 2 million in the United Kingdom (3,400 cases for 100,000 inhabitants) and 750,000 in France (1,210 cases for 100,000 inhabitants).
In the United States, using FoodNet data from 1996-1998, the CDCP estimated there were 76 million foodborne illnesses (26,000 cases for 100,000 inhabitants)
325,000 were hospitalized (111 per 100,000 inhabitants);
5,000 people died (1.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.).
Major pathogens from food borne illness in the United States cost upwards of US $35 billion in medical costs and lost productivity (1997)

Viral infections make up perhaps one third of cases of food poisoning in developed countries. In the US, more than 50% of cases are viral and noroviruses are the most common foodborne illness, causing 57% of outbreaks in 2004. Foodborne viral infection are usually of intermediate (1–3 days) incubation period, causing illnesses which are self-limited in otherwise healthy individuals, and are similar to the bacterial forms described above.

Rotavirus
Enterovirus
Hepatitis A is distinguished from other viral causes by its prolonged (2–6 week) incubation period and its ability to spread beyond the stomach and intestines, into the liver. It often induces jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, and rarely leads to chronic liver dysfunction. The virus has been found to cause the infection due to the consumption of fresh-cut produce which has fecal contamination.
Hepatitis E
Norovirus
Rotavirus