Protecting Yourself Through HACCP Food Safety Certification Demands
Imagine the outpouring of joy as citizens celebrate their country’s independence. This is what happens during the United States’ Independence Day commemoration on 4 July. As is customary in other nations, the celebration features various entertainments and exciting competitions, including a crab-eating contest and an abundance of food. Amidst the revelry, many partygoers suddenly begin vomiting. Quite a few also develop red rashes all over their bodies. This narrative opens the 2012 film The Bay, written by Michael Wallach and Barry Levinson, who also directed it. The larger story concerns an ecological catastrophe in Claridge, a small town on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.
The scene structure is described as a pseudo-documentary. It reveals the mutation of microorganisms—called isopods in the film—in a documentary style, as if it truly happened. The isopod in this fiction is the tongue-eating isopod, Cymothoa exigua, a marine parasite that attaches to a fish’s tongue and replaces its function. Consequently, from initial findings triggered by high pollution levels, fish are found floating with torn body parts. The fish’s bodies are torn apart because they are being eaten from the inside by the mutated, large-sized parasitic eaters.
Many theories attempt to explain the isopod mutation, including a nuclear leak from a power plant that occurred several years earlier. Another theory points to chicken manure from the mayor’s farm overflowing into the Chesapeake Bay area. The manure came from chickens given steroids to accelerate their growth. The steroids also caused the isopods to multiply extraordinarily, killing millions of fish and causing 40% of the bay’s inhabitants to die. The actual microorganism mutation was uncovered by two environmental experts, one from the United States and the other from France.
The film, packaged as a reportage by Donna Thomson exposing a highly confidential document leak, concludes with the depiction of Claridge City in ruins. This is because some residents suffered tragic deaths, and others no longer wished to live there. The entire scenario represents a failure of the governmental system to protect society from environmental crises and food safety threats.
Three key points can be underlined from the film. First, food poisoning at a competition event leads to fatal consequences, namely tragic death and ultimately the death of a city. Second, the food is contaminated by mutated biological material. This biological material preys on fish and contaminates other marine life. When humans consume this marine life, it causes damage to their bodies, and they die with their bodies torn apart. Third, the mutation of the biological material occurs due to a breakdown in the environmental protection system. The environment is damaged by chicken manure from a farm, which contains livestock growth steroids that overflow into the waters. The failure is systemic.
Assuming the story of ‘The Bay’ occurs in everyday reality, the chain of systemic failures can be prevented. Instead, the food ingredients causing the poisoning can be traced through the HACCP management system. The application of this system results in HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) certification, a statement of recognition for the implementation of a food safety management system. Applicable worldwide, it is designed to proactively identify, evaluate, and control biological, chemical, and physical hazards from the entire food supply chain, aiming to prevent foodborne illnesses.
Possessing this certificate provides evidence that a business has met stringent food safety standards. Ideagen.com, in 2023, outlined the role of HACCP more clearly. It states that HACCP aims to protect consumer health and prevent foodborne illnesses and allergic reactions. When a food product entity holds this certification, consumers trust its quality and safety. The certification becomes a crucial foundation for the continuity of the food industry’s production processes.
Furthermore, Ideagen.com outlines seven principles for HACCP implementation to achieve its promised outcomes. The first is hazard identification, which involves recognising all potential biological, chemical, or physical hazards that pose a risk to food safety. This includes testing raw materials for known allergens and preventing cross-contamination during processing through to the handling of finished products. The second principle is determining critical control points. For every identified hazard, control measures are required at specific critical control points, with an explanation linking the control to its critical point. The third principle is establishing critical limits, which must be set at each critical control point. This is done by defining an acceptable range for various factors, including temperature, time, pH levels, or other relevant parameters, such as setting minimum and maximum cooling temperatures for ingredients.
The fourth principle is implementing monitoring procedures. Routine monitoring is necessary to ensure critical control points are consistently met. This involves using daily checklists or digital devices to verify ingredient expiration dates, temperatures, and other critical factors are correctly monitored. The fifth principle is establishing corrective actions. In cases where a critical control point is uncontrolled or a deviation occurs, corrective actions must be clearly defined to address the issue and prevent unsafe food from reaching consumers.