Principles of food safety Risk management

The FAO/WHO preliminary Risk management framework and principles are described and discussed. The importance of emerging problems with food-borne pathogenic microorganisms is stressed, as is the importance of development of international co-operation based upon agreed principles in this area. It is argued that Risk management information should move as freely over the borders as food itself.

The concept of “target risk levels” is introduced, reflecting the dynamic nature of food-borne microbial disease risk. Target risk levels should be set primarily in relation to the incidence of human disease; however, in a number of cases Risk management initiatives will only indirectly relate to human disease and the primary initiatives will centre around the definition of tolerable hazard levels in the food.

The food safety objectives defined as part of the Risk management process should be used to govern HACCP as an outcome definition, and additionally some of the information generated as part of the Risk management process can be used in the HACCP systems, notably in the hazard analysis step of HACCP.