• Introduction to Food Hygiene; Terms and definitions; new risk metrics (ALOP, FSO, Performance objective, performance criteria, etc.)
• Food safety legislation; Codex-Alimentarius-Package of Food Hygiene EU regulations (178/2002; 852-854/2005, 2073/2005)
• Food hazards
• Foodborne diseases (intoxications vs infections) and sub-categories
• Attributes of biological and chemical foodborne hazards; growth/survival limits of foodborne pathogens; ecosystems that are likely associated with the presence of pathogens, hazard ecology
• Controlling biological hazards (application of hurdle theory)
• Basic infrastructure for Hygiene of Food Premises; Principles for hygienic design of food processing establishments and equipment
• Prerequisite programs; GMP, GHP; Basic vs operational prerequisite programs
• Introduction to HACCP; brief description of the 7 HACCP principles
• Introduction to risk analysis – Application of stochastic thinking in food safety; stochastic description of process parameters and microbial responses.
It is an introduction to food safety and assists in acquaintance of knowledge on (a) biological, chemical and physical hazards in foods; (ii) the types of foodborne diseases, their special characteristics and their associations with specific hazards; (iii) fundamental hygiene rules (prerequisite programs), manifested as Good Manufacturing Practices, Good Hygiene Practices, which serve as a basis for food safety management systems.
The course aims to familiarize students with the latest approaches in food safety, the relevant legislation and the new risk metrics. The ultimate goal is that the student develops “horizontal” and systematic thinking on food safety. He or she becomes qualified as a food safety inspector or a food safety expert, capable of identifying hazards along the food chain (i.e., performing hazard analysis) and assessing the impact of food safety interventions in order to prevent, eliminate or reduce hazards at acceptable levels, i.e., risk mitigation.
The lectures offer a multi- and inter-disciplinary framework on food safety, integrating knowledge obtained from other courses of Food Science. Teaching is highly based on case studies. It is interactive and requires that the students act as food safety professionals on real examples of outbreak investigation or potential cases of noncompliance of a processing line or a final product with hygiene standards.
The course also describes the principles of hygienic design of food processing facilities and equipment, along with a thorough overview of Good Sanitation Practices. Special focus is provided on Good Hygiene and Good Manufacturing Practices and the detailed description of the Basic and Operational Prerequisite Programs.
The ultimate goal of the course is to teach the students a holistic approach on food safety, assist them in solving problems, making mature decisions in risk mitigation and prepare them for application of the HACCP principles in food safety management systems, such as ISO 22000.
By the end of the course, students will be qualified in:
• Performing inspection on hygiene of food processing establishments
• Assessing the adequacy of prerequisites and improve the total hygiene infrastructure
• Coordinating systematic outbreak investigations for identifying the hazard causing the outbreak and the point-of-entry in the food chain (i.e., source attribution).
• Designing proper decontamination interventions
• Applying HACCP principles and adopting them in food safety management systems, which will be taught more extensively in subsequent courses.
• Understanding risk assessment methodology and stochastic/systems thinking in making decisions on food safety
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