If you are confused, let me assure you, you
are not the only one. We get asked this question so many times that we thought
we would put this piece together.
Let us start from the beginning. As per
Wikipedia Food defense is the
protection of food products from intentional contamination or
adulteration by biological, chemical, physical, or radiological agents
introduced for the purpose of causing harm. It addresses additional concerns
including physical, personnel and operational security.
Food safety
on the other hand, gets compromised due to ignorance, mistakes or simply
because of not following the processes. It is unintentional outcome.
This can be depicted in the using the adjoining
risk matrix. In addition to the food safety and food defense, there is also Food fraud, which is
based on intentional deception for economic gain; and Food quality, which
may also be affected by profit-driven behavior but without intention to cause
harm.
Food protection is the umbrella term
encompassing both food defense and food safety. These six terms are often
conflated. Along with protecting the food system, food defense also deals with
prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery from intentional acts
of adulteration.
The purpose of a food defense program is to
protect foods from intentional adulteration and to reduce impact of an attack
on the food system. The hazards that needs to be addressed for both food safety
as well as food defense are same. (Biological, Chemical (including Allergen),
Physical and Radiological).
Hazards in food can come from raw material,
packaging material, equipment, personnel and environment which can be reduced
to an acceptable level during the processing and handling to ensure consumers
get safe food. These hazards are identified using HACCP where 12 steps are
followed to identify and control hazards.
A food safety plan is what helps managing these hazards. The control
measure identified in the Food Safety Plan needs to be monitored and verified
at a set frequency to ensure that control points are capable of handling these
hazards.
Hazards in food may also be introduced intentionally.
The reason for intentional adulteration can be from a disgruntled employee, terrorism
or economically motivated adulteration. This is all for profit gain but in the
end, it affects the food safety. Like a HACCP, a TACCP (Threat Assessment and
Critical Control Point) study is required to identify sources of tampering,
intentional adulteration of food, and food defense. The process for TACCP is described
in PAS96:2017 and tools like CRAVER plus can help ease the process. Here is a
quick run down on what you need to do.
Establish a Food Defense team
Conduct Threat Assessment to identify and evaluate potential threats and vulnerabilities
Identify and select proportionate mitigation measures
Document the threat assessment, mitigation measures, verification and incident management procedures in a Food Defense Plan supported by the Food Safety Management System
Develop an effective training and communication strategy and implement the Food Defense Plan
The threats thus
identified may be graded using the following parameters.
Criticality – measure of public health and economic impacts of
an attack
Accessibility – ability to physically access and egress from
target
Recuperability – ability of system to recover from an attack
Vulnerability – ease of accomplishing attack
Effect – amount of direct loss from an attack as measured by
loss in production
Recognizability – ease of identifying target
Shock – the combined health, economic, and psychological impacts
of an attack
If the threat becomes a significant risk, a mitigation strategy
must be identified which could be at any point in the supply chain. Good supply chain management coupled with regular audits and
quality assurance analysis can help safeguard companies from threats
originating outside the facility.
While strategies
to mitigate the threats may be specific to each organization and how it handles
its material through the supply chain, there are a few generic ones that apply
to most organizations
Physical measures
These help secure the product by controlling the
physical access to the facility/product
Secure the facility perimeter and perform periodic checks
Use controlled-access procedures for people or vehicles entering
the plant or parking area
Install an alarm system, cameras and sufficient lighting
Designate restricted areas for authorized employees, restrict
non-employees to non-production areas
Maintain key and lock control processes for all entry and exit
points
Policy measures
This helps reduce the threats through people
Use a system to identify personnel by their specific functions
Conduct background checks on all employees and contractors who
will be working in sensitive operations
Train employees on food defense and security awareness,
including recognition of suspicious behavior or individuals
Management measures
This help contain the issue if the threats were
to materialize
Maintain records to allow easy trace-back and trace-forward of
materials and products
Implement an inventory control system
In a nut shell managing both food safety and food defense needs planning.
Food Safety Plan prevents a system failure whereas Food Defense plan prevents a
system attack. Both need to be handled to ensure food moving out of your
premises is safe for consumption as per its intended use.
The hazards that need
to be managed are similar but the intentions are different. Food safety hazards
are anticipated and handled whereas food defense threats are not.
Author: Sarika Agarwal is the Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Food Safety Works. She is an expert at international standards like FSSC22000, BRC and FSMA. Over her career spanning 15+ years, she has helped clients effective food safety management systems.
