The International Organization for Standards (ISO) have developed a new standard for food safety, ISO 22003. The recent theme for the world food safety day was ‘Safer food, better health’, and it is fitting that this is timed with the release within the ISO 22000 family of the new ISO 22003 standard.
Going alongside many previous standards and building on the well-established guidelines already in place for the food and hospitality industries, ISO 22003 is the latest tool in the inspection toolbox. Paired with mobile inspection platforms, the standard can bring further clarity in a detailed oriented industry; the World Health Organization (WHO) themselves noting that today’s focus should be on safe and nutritional food to ensure human health and well-being. There is clear data that backs up the development of further standards and guidelines for the global food industry, the WHO stating that 600 million cases and 420,000 deaths globally are related to foodborne issues. 30% of food-related fatalities occur among children under the age of five. It is only through setting standards and regulations that the global food industries can improve the safety of food globally, encouraging development around the world.
Today, the vast majority of ISO standards are used within paperless inspection platforms so that inspectors can carry out inspections in line with a standard and can avoid carrying the entire documentation on a paper checklist. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are the tool of choice for most digital inspection providers, with these devices being used with a mobile inspection application, running any checklist necessary. This means that the inspector can be carrying out a routine safety check of a food manufacturing asset, before moving onto another checklist on the same application, such as an inspection in line with ISO 22003. Within one area, the inspector can carry out multiple inspections, food-related, facility-related, safety-related etc. The benefit of using such a setup is that the inspector will quickly become familiar with the structure of the checklist and carrying out each audit or inspection will take less time. By using the features of the mobile device, the inspector can capture information and record it faster than the usual pen and paper checklist method.
