Importance Of Food Safety In Food Industry

Food safety refers to preparation, handling, and storage of food in a manner to reduce the risk of consumers becoming sick from foodborne illnesses.

- Mandeep Kaur

The principle of food safety is to prevent food from contamination and also preventing to cause food poisoning. It is a matter of concern all across the globe and different steps have been taking place to resolve this problem. Some include: cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces and equipment; maintaining the level of personal hygiene; proper processing and storage of food with regards to temperature; environment; and proper pest control whereever needed.

The food safety considerations include: the origins of food including the practices relating to food labelling; food hygiene; food additives and pesticide residues; as well as policies on biotechnology and food and guidelines for the management of governmental import and export inspection and certification systems for foods. Food safety is about producing, handling, storing and preparing food in such a way as to prevent infection and contamination in the food production chain. Food safety helps to ensure that food quality and wholesomeness are maintained to promote good health.

It is a big concern for the food industry now because some microbes have demonstrated resistance to methods of food preparation and storage, and to antibiotics.

Protecting Food-borne Illness with Everyday Food Safety

Food-borne illness is generally caused by eating food that is contaminated by bacteria or other harmful substances. When the food is contaminated it becomes hazardous. Contamination may take place because of the harmful substances and microorganisms. It may happen during the process of production, transportation, packaging, storage, sales and cooking process. The type of contamination of the food can be categorized as physical, chemical and biological.