ISO 22000:2018 – 5.2.1 - Establishing the food safety policy – Part 2

 

 

 

Welcome back to this page. I hope, as always, that the information presented here is of interest to you and that it helps to deepen your knowledge of ISO 22000:2018 and its requirements somewhat.

 

In the previous entry we carried out the analysis of the first twelve requirements of this section. If you wish to access this text, click here.

 

In this entry I will conclude the analysis of the group of requirements corresponding to Section 5.2.1 - Establishment of the food safety policy, which is part of Subclause 5.2 – Policy, of this ISO 22000 standard.

 

It is important to remember that all requirements derived from this section of ISO 22000 refer to the food safety policy, which should be established, implemented and maintained by top management.

 

When an organization considers establishing, implementing, verifying, reviewing, auditing or maintaining a food safety policy, all of these requirements of this Section 5.2.1 should be taken into account.

 

So that you can identify all the requirements that are broken down in this section 5.2.1 of the ISO 22000 standard, I present to you the complete list again:

  

And since this entry deals with the analysis of requirements, let's continue with those that we still have to analyze.

 

 

Requirement No. 64: Top management shall establish a food safety policy that includes a commitment to satisfy applicable food safety requirements, including statutory and regulatory requirements and mutually agreed customer requirements related to food safety.

 

When we analyzed requirement No. 52 we saw what it means to “establish” the food safety policy. This requirement refers, in particular, to the fact that when is integrating all the elements to establish the food safety policy, top management should include that commitment to meet all applicable food safety requirements. Among those applicable requirements, it should consider all those established by the ISO 22000:2018 standard, as well as all the complementary requirements that the organization itself has established for its food safety management system. Additionally, all those statutory and regulatory requirements with which the organization should comply must be included, considering the location of its facilities, as well as its processes, products, services and markets served, and should also include contractual requirements, which have been mutually agreed with customers, and that are related to food safety.

 

 

Requirement No. 65: Top management shall implement a food safety policy that includes a commitment to satisfy applicable food safety requirements, including statutory and regulatory requirements and mutually agreed customer requirements related to food safety.

 

In the same way, when we analyzed requirement No. 54 we saw what it means to “implement” the food safety policy by top management, but this requires that the aforementioned policy includes a commitment, on the part of the organization, to meet all applicable food safety requirements.

 

It may seem like it repeats with the previous requirement, but it doesn't. For this, it is convenient to remember that establishing is not the same as implementing. In order to properly meet this requirement, top management should ensure that when the food safety policy is being implemented, the stated commitment to meet all applicable food safety requirements is being met. To do this, it should establish monitoring and measurement programs to confirm that all requirements established by the ISO 22000 standard are being met, so the additional ones that the organization itself has established for its FSMS, all the statutory and regulatory requirements that the organization should comply with, considering, as mentioned, the location of its facilities, as well as its processes, products, services and markets served, and it should also include the contractual requirements, which are those that have been mutually agreed with the customers, and that are related to food safety.

 

 

Requirement No. 66: Top management shall maintain a food safety policy that includes a commitment to satisfy applicable food safety requirements, including statutory and regulatory requirements and mutually agreed customer requirements related to food safety.

 

When we analyzed requirement No. 56 we saw what it means to “maintain” the food safety policy by top management. Particularly in this requirement it is established that the aforementioned policy includes this commitment to meet all applicable food safety requirements.

 

In order to meet this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when taking actions to maintain its food safety policy, all necessary elements are considered so that the previously established commitment to meet all applicable food safety requirements is also maintained, and for this, it should carry out a review of all the appropriate sources of information, to ensure that all requirements that had originally been identified as applicable, including those of the ISO 22000:2018 standard, the complementary ones established by the organization itself, the statutory and regulatory requirements, and also those contractual that have been mutually agreed with customers, and that are related to food safety, continue to be so, or the necessary adjustments are made so that the aforementioned policy continues to be valuable.

 

 

Requirement No. 67: Top management shall establish a food safety policy that addresses internal communication.

 

This requirement establishes, in particular, that when top management is integrating the aforementioned policy, for its establishment, it should include one element that addresses internal communication. This point is important, to give rise to compliance with Section 5.2.2 Communication of the quality policy, which establishes some requirements on the communication of the food safety policy, within the organization, as well as for compliance with Sections 7.4.1 - General, and 7.4.3 - Internal communication, which are part of Sub-clause 7.4 - Communication of the ISO 22000:2018 standard.

 

 

Requirement No. 68: Top management shall establish a food safety policy that addresses external communication.

 

This requirement establishes, in particular, that when top management is integrating the aforementioned policy, for establishing, it includes one element that addresses external communication. This point, in the same way as the previous one, is important, to give the organization a footing to comply with Section 5.2.2 - Communicating the food safety policy, which establishes some requirements on this external communication of the policy. of food safety, as well as for compliance with sections 7.4.1 - General, and 7.4.2 - External communication, which are part of Sub-clause 7.4 Communication of the ISO 22000:2018 standard.

 

 

Requirement No. 69: Top management shall implement a food safety policy that addresses internal communication.

 

This requirement refers to the fact that when top management is implementing the food safety policy, it creates the conditions for  process management for internal communication to be in accordance with the requirements of Section 5.2.2 - Communication of the food safety policy, which establishes some requirements on the communication of the food safety policy, within the organization, as well as for compliance with the requirements derived from sections 7.4.1 - General, and 7.4.3 - Internal communication, which are part of Sub-clause 7.4 - Communication of ISO 22000:2018.

 

 

Requirement No. 70: Top management shall implement a food safety policy that addresses external communication.

 

In order to meet this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when implementing the food safety policy, it creates the conditions for external communication processes to be managed, in accordance with the requirements of Section 5.2.2 - Communication of the foof safety policy, which establishes some requirements on the communication of the food safety policy, to the relevant interested parties, as well as for compliance with sections 7.4.1 - General, and 7.4.2 - External communication, which are part of Subclause 7.4 - Communication of the ISO 22000:2018 standard.

 

 

Requirement No. 71: Top management shall maintain a food safety policy that addresses internal communication.

 

In order to apply this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when taking actions to maintain its food safety policy, all necessary elements are considered so that internal communication processes are also maintained and meet the requirements for these processes.

 

 

Requirement No. 72: Top management shall maintain a food safety policy that addresses external communication.

 

In order to apply this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when taking actions to maintain its food safety policy, all necessary elements are considered so that external communication processes are also maintained and meet the requirements for these processes.

 

 

Requirement No. 73: Top management must establish a food safety policy that includes a commitment to continuous improvement of the FSMS.

 

This requirement refers to the fact that when integrating the food safety policy to be established by top management, it includes a commitment to continuous improvement of food safety management system.

 

In a previous entry I told you that one of the characteristics of management systems based on standards, being open systems, is that they tend to entropy, to their uselessness and destruction. That is why the only way to keep such a system operating efficiently is for it to continuously improve, and for this reason all these management system standards establish continuous improvement as a requirement, as stated in this standard, it establishes Clause 10 – Improvement, and that is why the food safety policy should include this commitment to design and manage processes for the continuous improvement of FSMS.

 

 

Requirement No. 74: Top management shall implement a food safety policy that includes a commitment to continual improvement of the FSMS.

 

In order to meet this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when implementing its food safety policy, it creates the conditions for processes related to continual improvement to be properly managed and can be confirmed, with sufficient evidence, the expected improvement in performance of FSMS, in accordance with the established objectives.

 

 

Requirement No. 75: Top management shall maintain a food safety policy that includes a commitment to continual improvement of the FSMS.

 

In order to apply this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when taking actions to maintain its food safety policy, all the necessary elements are considered so that both the commitment to improvement, such as the process management for improvement and requirements for these processes are met.

 

 

Requirement No. 76: Top management shall establish a food safety policy that addresses the need to ensure competencies related to food safety.

 

This requirement refers to the fact that when integrating the food safety policy to be established by top management, one of those elements addresses the need to ensure competencies related to food safety.

 

The competencies refer to the set of knowledge, experience, skills, and, where appropriate, attitudes that are necessary for the staff to reliably carry out the different operations of the food safety management system.

 

The definition established by the ISO 9000: 2015 standard for this term is the following:

 

 

This definition includes the following notes:

 

Note 1 to entry: Demonstrated competence is sometimes referred to as qualification.

 

Note 2 to entry: This term is one of the common terms and essential definitions for management system standards provided in Annex SL of the consolidated ISO Supplement to Part 1 of the ISO/IEC Directives. The original definition has been modified by adding note 1 to the entry.

 

The ISO 22000 standard covers this aspect with the requirements derived from Sub-clause 7.2 - Competence, and that is why the policy needs to address the need to ensure this competence. In this way, the organization will identify the needs, in terms of competence, for the operation of all FSMS processes.

 

 

Requirement No. 77: Top management shall implement a food safety policy that addresses the need to ensure competencies related to food safety.

 

In order to meet this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when implementing the food safety policy, it creates the conditions so that the need to ensure that the organization has the necessary competence for the FSMS operation.

 

Requirement No. 78: Top management shall maintain a food safety policy that addresses the need to ensure competencies related to food safety.

 

In order to apply this requirement appropriately, top management should ensure that, when taking actions to maintain the food safety policy, all necessary elements are considered so that the need to ensure related competence met with food safety, as established by the requirements derived from Subclause 7.2 - Competence.

 

In the next entry I will continue with the analysis of requirements of this Subclause 5.2 - Policy, corresponding to Section 5.2.2 – Communicating the food safety policy.

 

 

Author:

 

Ernesto Palomares Hilton