| There exists an elusive fascination for this writer about the connection between the tiny, invisible contact points that become contamination points, in the food chain process, which cause members of the human race to become ill, and even sometimes, to die. This study will be examining the general food safety in a processing plant and how the use of common sense and the applied principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) can develop a contamination-free process flow. People who work in processing plants and distribution centers are just that---people. The handling of food is always a possible source of contamination. Many food processing workers know sound hygienic principles of food protection and practice them, both at home and at work. There are however, many food processing workers, especially newly hired workers, who do not know or appreciate the need for these basic principles. There is no reason to inflict foodborne illness or foodborne injury on a single member of the consuming public. The President of the United States has recently recognized this fact. To protect the nation's food supply, on August 25, 1998, President William J. Clinton signed an executive order creating a council to oversee food safety, a task currently handled by a patchwork of federal agencies that have created a morass of confusing rules, regulations and one-up-manship squabbles at the expense of the consuming public. This new council, to be drawn in part from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Health and Human Services, will coordinate and unify the efforts of all these agencies who were formerly competing for funding, to work together toward the common good of the consuming public and will now coordinate enforcement, research, education and prevention activities. It is the education and prevention activities that this work addresses in the form of a working model or modeling techniques for one important segment of the long chain of the food supply food processors and distribution centers.This study will demonstrate how every person at each step in the process will prevent the occurrence of foodborne illness and foodborne injury by following simple procedures. By modeling the steps outlined, the food processor and distribution centers can be assured that only safe products enter the food chain. The governmental regulators tell the processors that they must comply with the rules, laws and regulations to keep the nation's food supply safe but do not tell the food processors how to go about doing this to comply with the rules, laws and regulations. The processor is faced with a situation where there will be an audit by the government for compliance to standards. Developing the procedure is a costly undertaking to begin from scratch. This work attempts to link the procedures to an appropriate educational module to assure that the final outcome of each step in the food processing and distribution chain, results in safe food. |
