Industrial Utility Efficiency

ISO 22000 Certification for the Food & Beverage Industry


ISO 22000 is a food and beverage (F&B) specific derivative of ISO 9001, a family of standards from the International Organization for Standardization that details the requirements of a quality management system. It is a quality certification that can be applied to any organization in the food chain — from packaging machine manufacturers to the actual food processing facilities.

 

Canning

Any company in the F&B industry can adopt the quality safety management system detailed in ISO 22000.

 

Being ISO 22000 certified provides a level of confidence to customers. They can be sure the company they are buying from has the safety management measures in place to ensure the safety and quality of their product.

There are three primary safety hazards in F&B manufacturing that ISO 22000 addresses, including biological, chemical and physical. The key components of the ISO 22000 certification seek to address those hazards by identifying and mitigating them. Earning ISO 22000 certification involves the following:

  1. Set up a documented food safety management system to manage the processes throughout the facility.
  2. Establish prerequisite programs to ensure a sanitary environment.
  3. Institute an HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) principal, which identifies, prevents and eliminates hazards.

 

Compressed Air and Blowers in the F&B Industry

Because air compressors and blowers play such an important role in the F&B industry, ISO 22000 should be a key certification for manufacturers supplying equipment to the industry. ISO 22000 gives F&B manufacturers peace of mind that, in the case of a compressor and blower manufacturer, a key piece of the manufacturing process was made in a clean, safe environment.

 

Blow off applications

Blow-off applications are common in a great deal of F&B manufacturing facilities.

 

ISO 22000 certification also reassures consumers that the business they are buying from is working with suppliers who conform to international quality, safety and reliability standards. An ISO 22000-certified manufacturer needs to make sure that products along their own supply lines are manufactured in safe environments and meet the standard’s requirements. For example, as part of the approval process Atlas Copco examined its sub-suppliers, helping them to eliminate any potential hazards. This process ensured there were no physical, biological or chemical hazards that could compromise the company’s own manufacturing processes.

 

Clean equipment

ISO 22000 gives F&B manufacturers peace of mind that equipment was made in a sanitary environment.

 

Atlas Copco Achieves ISO 22000

Atlas Copco is the first compressed air product manufacturer to receive ISO 22000 Certification. Applicable products have already achieved ISO 8573-1 Class Zero certification, ensuring compressed air is oil-free and will not contaminate the F&B manufacturing process. To bring more value to the products, the next logical step was to apply for ISO 22000 certification.

In 2015, the production facility of Atlas Copco’s Oil-free Air Division in Antwerp, Belgium, was awarded ISO 22000 certification after an audit was executed by Lloyd’s. The Antwerp location manufactures oil-free air compressors, blowers and air treatment products.

 

ISO 22000 Provides a Unique Challenge

Achieving ISO 22000 was a challenging endeavor, and the process took more than one year. There are a lot of guidelines concerning food safety hazards in the F&B industry. Applying those guidelines and implementing a Food Safety Management System at the world’s largest air compressor manufacturing facility was no easy task.

 

 Watter bottles line

ISO 22000 certification ensures there are no physical, biological or chemical hazards that could compromise an F&B manufacturing process.

 

For instance, if a potential chemical hazard was identified, it needed to be communicated to everyone involved in the process — from upper management on down. If that chemical was used for a particular process, proper sanitation needed to be performed to eliminate any potential contamination. Extrapolated across a large facility manufacturing many different products, communicating across different divisions, sub-suppliers and process engineers provided a unique challenge.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, however, was documentation. Even if a process was in place for managing safety, it required documentation in the language of ISO 22000. Trained managers are now in place who have gone through the process and understand the system. With those key members in place, the process has become significantly easier. With this experience, the Company can now assist F&B customers going through the ISO 22000 process as well.  A revision of the ISO 22000 standard is currently underway with an expected publication date of 2017.

 

For more information visit www.atlascopco.us.

To read more about ISO Standards, please visit www.airbestpractices.com/standards.