What?

The Food Care Award (FCA/22000) is designed to enable food business achieve certification of it's Food Safety (HACCP) Management System in line with ISO 2200. The scheme consists of self assessment, technical support and external audits.

The Food Care Award methodology is designed to enable companies to demonstrate a due diligence approach in all the operations within the chain of food product delivery, from "Farm to Fork". Through self-assessment, the system measures continuous improvement, and verification of effectiveness. The FCA program is a Food Safety Management System incorporating the HACCP principals, to ensure that all measures are taken to prevent the occurrence of unsafe food.

Why?

The FCA ensures the full involvement of the business in the development and implementation of it's HACCP management system. Practical assistance through out the project is available.

The certification ensures that the organisation has implemented a food safety management system based on the HACCP principles according to legal requirements and supported by documented procedures and good practice instructions to provide a framework to ensure that they are met. Achievement of the Food Care Award recognises that the management system in place is designed to ensure continual improvement and verifies effectiveness against selected criteria and set policy and objectives.

How?

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The Food Safety Management System is utilised to maintain and demonstrate food integrity to supply safe food. The system is built up on seven basic criteria as agreed by the World Food Safety Organisation Technical Committee:

Compliance: formal commitment by a company to the national legal requirements and to selected standard. The food safety standard considered should be based on the HACCP principles.

Good Practice Procedures: on the basis of the selected requirements, procedures are documented to assist the company to achieve commitments.

Demonstration of 'Due Diligence': at any particular time, the company should be in a position to demonstrate, through records, that all hazards have been controlled as practicable possible.

Performance criteria: development of measurable criteria on which performance and effectiveness of system can be judged.

Management review: self-assessment, through internal auditing of the system, ensures continuous improvement and compliance to regulation amendments.

Communication: a continual process of communication with local authorities and external auditing organisation (auditing against set of selected standards) ensures that the system implemented is upgraded according to new guidelines being issued.

Training: companies should ensure that management, employees at all levels and those in contractual duties with the company, are aware of their commitment and duties. Involvement of employees at all levels in the achievement of the company's policy objectives, ensures that good practice is integrated at all levels of operation.

These basic criteria ensure a preventive approach whereby all practicable possible controls are being monitored and procedures are in place to rectify and trace non-conformances to the set of standards being observed. It is of imperative importance that all personnel involved in the execution of the food safety plan are aware of the possible risk and hence understand hazard control. All these issues are reviewed and the effectiveness of the system is measured, through the use of performance criteria.

The Food Safety Management System should ensure good practice and that all procedures are being observed at all times and that the observations are recorded within the system that is designed to measure and verify continuous improvement and effectiveness. To achieve this the organization should undergo self-assessment.

The verification process encompass the use of this questionnaire which is based on the Food Care Award Guidance. The questionnaire has been designed to be used as a tool to identify strengths and weaknesses within the organisation's Food Safety Management system and thus create opportunities for improvement. The questionnaire is designed to assess the ten tools of achievement defined in the Guidance documents starting from 'Management Commitment' to 'Management Review'.

To be able to display the internationally recognised symbol for Food Care Award, organisations are required to meet a set of qualifying requirements, including: