Internal Food Safety Auditing

What is a food safety audit?

A food safety audit is described as a highly structured activity that aims to document evaluations on a food business’s food safety system to determine if all practices are according to appropriate food laws and regulations. A food safety audit creates a transparent report about the situation of and level of food safety systems in a food business and highlights its strengths and weaknesses. These reports can then be used to improve your food safety management strategy.
As consumers become more and more aware of food safety laws and regulations and the risk of food contamination, food safety audits are becoming more essential than ever. Food safety agencies have put heavy emphasis on hazard analysis and their prevention to protect public health. All the more reason for you to focus on strengthening your food control systems!

Food Safety Audit Objectives

As mentioned, a food safety audit is mainly conducted to evaluate and verify the level of food safety management systems of food businesses for their continuous improvement. In addition to this objective, food safety audits can be observed to satisfy other reasons which include the following:
- Certification audit for certain food safety standards.
- Assessment of premises condition and food business performance.
- Ensure legal compliance.
- Inspection in response to a complaint.
- Regulatory requirement.
- Supplier request.
- Promote business objectives.

Food Safety Key Steps for a Successful Audit

Review Your Basic Food Safety Knowledge

A food safety audit is not only about the state of your food safety management system standards. Having a deep understanding of the subject matter such as basic food safety topics displays your expertise and confidence in the practices that you employ to make your food products. You must be able to answer and justify any question posed by the auditor whether they may be basic or technical food safety questions. Not knowing how to answer simple questions such as "What are the food safety hazards of your day-to-day business operations?" shows your lack of preparedness and can be the basis to question the integrity of your system.

Ensure compliance with all prerequisite programs

Almost all food safety management systems stem from prerequisite programs. They are the foundation of the majority of food safety practices. Once you ensure that you have all prerequisite programs in the bag, then you have quite a big chance of impressing your food safety auditor. These prerequisite programs include current Good Manufacturing Practices, Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures, and an allergen control system.

Review documentation files.

One of the first steps to a food safety audit is to present your documentation to the food safety auditor before an on-site inspection. Your monitoring forms, checklists, verification documents, and other progress report are proof that your food control system is working. Make sure that all documents are complete and accurate.

Use checklists to finish tasks

Preparing for a food safety audit involves several tasks that are concerned in almost all the various fields of your food operations. To stay on track and to be sure to remember all food safety tasks, use checklists. These tools allow you to identify urgent matters and focus on their completion.

Perform an internal audit

Unannounced audits can make anyone nervous because there is a lot at stake. Despite this, you can prevent human error from happening by adopting a strict auditing routine within your food business. Regular internal audits will allow your employees to imprint in their everyday routine the necessary proper food safety practices and will eventually do them even without supervision. This task will also serve as a practical experience and food safety training and promote continual improvement in your employees' performance.

Orient and train your team

During one of your regular in-house meetings or when new employees come on board of your food business, make sure to put in your agenda to orient everyone about food safety audits and what would be the course of action to satisfy their legal requirements. The first step to becoming well-prepared is to know what is about to happen. Properly orienting your team creates a strong food safety culture and improves their sense of ownership and accountability for tasks that are assigned to them.

Food Safety Audit Steps

Planning

In this step, an auditor or an audit team must identify the clear objective of the food safety audit process. This step narrows down the key areas that are needed to be evaluated in the auditing process. A predetermined scope will be used to guide the whole food safety audit. The planning stage will help audit teams to focus on their specific observations and therefore offer more critical suggestions and assessments. It is also the stage when the auditor will require your food business to submit a copy of your food safety management plan to review before the actual audit. Based on the evaluation of your documented food safety management system, an auditor may decide to push through with an onsite verification or not.

Execution

If an auditor sees fit that an onsite inspection is needed, then one will follow soon after the evaluation of your food safety documents. An onsite verification would involve the review of your process operations, sanitation conditions, food safety practices, food safety management system, and documentation.

Corrective and Preventative Actions.

In this stage of an audit process, the auditor evaluates your preparedness to address breaches in standards through properly established preventive and corrective actions.

Verification

The process would assess whether the preventive and corrective actions are appropriate as well as effective. Verification procedures are commonly conducted by reviewing documents where any corrective action has been recorded and the results after applying them.

Audit Evaluation

Along the process of the actual audit, auditors need to evaluate their progress. If you think about it, this stage makes total sense. Evaluating the audit process ensures that it is still on track and that the objectives are being met. This process is even more useful for internal food safety audits as it can improve their evaluation process to the point of being very critical.

Food Safety Management System
Food Storage
Food Preparation

This area involves how you conduct and monitor your operations and ensure that everything follows food safety standards. It also includes proper documentation of your resolutions in case of dispute, breach of standards, and other non-conformities in your food safety plans.

Storage of raw and finished goods has varying standards that equally need to be monitored. Proper storage conditions ensure that you are using safe raw materials and that the integrity of the shelf-life of your finished products is maintained. Potential problems during a food safety audit may come from broken or uncalibrated thermostats, food lying on the freezer floor, damaged packaging, and cross-contamination of raw and finished products.

This key area of food safety audits is quite broad. It includes food handling practices such as proper segregation of raw materials during preparation, proper cooking to the correct internal temperatures, correct thawing of frozen foods, and even the use of gloves or handwashing during preparation. Depending on the nature and extensiveness of your operations, this section may become very long and have many subsections.

Sanitation and Cleaning
Facility Design
Waste management
Employee Hygiene

Foodborne illnesses are usually caused by the lack of proper cleaning and sanitation practices. As such, this area is considered a key section of a food safety audit. It would include having properly installed handwashing facilities, proper sanitation equipment, and a supply of hot water for cleaning.

Often neglected, the design of your facility contributes to the safety of your operations. Auditors often check the presence of drainages, the presence of chipped paint, and even the layout of your operations area.

Including a secured and working waste management system ensures food safety auditors and customers alike that your food business is operating cleanly and is contributing to the protection of the environment.

One of the major sections of a food safety audit is how your employees conduct themselves during your operations to minimize the risk of food contamination. Employee hygiene pertains to the cleanliness of your employees, their proper attire, and hygiene practices such as hand-washing.