Brewery HACCP plan

Brewery HACCP plan

[Name of the Institute]

Brewery HACCP plan

Introduction

Food safety is the management of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness and negative social and environmental consequences. Food can contain or grow bacteria that can cause food poisoning and transmit diseases. Food therefore requires scientific examination to ensure safety to its consumers. Food safety therefore emerges as a new scientific discipline that examines the production and processing of food to prevent negative health, environmental, and social implications. Green or organic food is often presented as an example of safe food because of the debate on the health and environmental consequences of genetically modified food (Busch, 2004, 20). Previously, food safety was understood just as freshness and taste free from any hazardous bacteria; at this time, however, different social and environmental attributes are also part of it.

Discussion and Analysis

Since time immemorial, “food” has been playing a pivotal role not only in human health and pleasure but also in economics, culture, and politics. Whereas early human societies—hunters and gatherers, for instance—were dependent on food sources within their tribal territories, nowadays most people in richer countries consume food from all over the globe. As a consequence, the physical distance between the places of production and places of consumption is growing fast, whereas the time gap between producing and consuming a food is closing rapidly.

At this time, because of the globalization process, developing nations are orienting their food products to meet global market demands, and as a result, many local food production systems in developing countries are increasingly linked to global commodity chains or networks, generating a complex governing system between the local and the global.

Traditionally, government agencies were responsible for monitoring food safety standards and other food quality attributes. However, the recent emergence of privately regulated supply chains organized more around principles of safety or quality has precipitated a shift in governance. Previously, the notion of food safety was understood as freshness and taste; however, recent movements have extended this notion to include other social and environmental attributes. Local and global environmental and civil rights movements have launched campaigns to address social justice issues by making sure that agrofood products are environmentally friendly and socially responsible and have meaningful community participation. These are sometimes known as “credence” or nonmaterial characteristics of food safety—characteristics that the consumers cannot detect after purchase in the same way that they detect freshness and taste.

These credence qualities include the environmental and ethical conditions of production. For example, is the food commodity produced organically? Do foods contain genetically modified varieties? Are bean or coffee producers being paid a fair price? Are dolphins affected when tuna are caught? Under what conditions were animals raised? As these safety attributes are confined to the production and processing of food commodities and are not readily apparent in the physical products that reach the consumer, consumers can make a choice or understand the credence qualities if the product has trustworthy labels.

This shift toward a broader definition of safety (appearance, size, consistency, taste, ...