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Vinson Kurian

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, June 6

CASHEW processing units in the country are now gearing up to meet the emerging food import regulations of the US and Europe.

A few units have already implemented the quality management system (ISO as well as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points or HACCP) and many are on the way, according to Dr B. Jacob, Managing Director of the Kochi-based Synergy Systems, which specialises in HACCP consultancy.

According to Dr Jacob, spice-processing units also are increasingly implementing QMS in their processing facilities.

He told Business Line that the response of the Indian food processing companies to challenges posed by the HACCP norms was encouraging, but it was largely limited to the fringes.

The food processing had almost come to a standstill after USFDA and the European Union in the late 90s came up with the requirement that all fish processing units exporting to the respective countries should put in place a quality management system (QMS) based on HACCP.

But the seafood industry was quick to come to grips with the situation and many units implemented HACCP and transformed their processing facilities to world class. Today, more than 50 seafood processing units in the country are qualified for exporting their products to EU countries.

Synergy Systems was instrumental in creating an awareness about HACCP in the food processing industry. It had conducted the first awareness programme in 1995 for sea food processing units based in Kochi and Alapuzha.

Explaining the concept, Dr Jacob said HACCP had become significantly important as an effective means of ensuring food safety the world over. It was synonymous with food safety and recognised internationally as a systematic and a preventive approach that addresses biological, chemical and physical hazards through prevention rather than end-product inspection and testing.

HACCP was originally developed as a microbiological safety system in the early days of the US manned space programme as a vital means to ensure the safety of the food for the astronauts. The original system was drawn up by the Pillsbury Company along with NASA. It was based on the engineering model, FMEA (Failure, Mode and Effect Analysis), which identifies what could go wrong at each stage in an operation along with possible causes and the likely effect, before deploying effective control measures. Like FMEA, HACCP looks for hazards or what could go wrong but in the context of product safety.

Synergy Systems was established by a group of resource persons who had earlier been working in the Export Inspection Agency. The main activities of the company are quality surveys and certification of export consignments of cashew kernels, spices, seafoods and other food products, consultancy on QMS, survey and monitoring of food processing units for conformance to importing countries regulations. It also specialises in infrastructure development of food processing units and training of technologists.

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