Hygienic design becomes central in the certification of food systems

The international organisation Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), which works to harmonise requirements for and continuously improve food safety throughout the value chain, has recently published a new 2020 version of its benchmarking requirements. With version 2020, GFSI has specifically chosen to include hygienic design, following a longer collaboration with a number of stakeholders, including the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG). Version 2020 also includes linguistic simplifications and a structure aligned with ISO 22000, etc.

GFSI has added two completely new scopes to its benchmarking requirements, both of which concern hygienic design of food buildings and equipment for food production:

• JI is intended for manufacturers of equipment and buildings.
• JII is aimed at the users of these.

Initially, both scopes are voluntary to include in certifications, but it must be expected that they will increasingly gain ground in third-party certifications in the future.

Risk assessment of food safety

Hygienic design has been a requirement and covered by EU legislation since the Machinery Directive was introduced in 1995, and machine builders and suppliers of equipment to the food industry are required to ensure that what is delivered functions appropriately to maintain the food safety chain. This is done primarily by carrying out a risk assessment to ensure that equipment, under intended use, can be kept clean and be in a condition where the risk of food contamination is kept to a minimum.

EN 1672-2:2009, which describes risk assessment, is being revised and launched in 2021 with greater focus on risk management. Use of EN 1672-2:2009 ensures compliance with the Machinery Directive.

Increased requirements for hygienic design

Hygienic design fundamentally helps create a good basis for processes to be cleaned and for it to be possible to maintain a good level of food safety, but hygienic design is rarely regarded as an active part of the day-to-day maintenance of food safety. This will change as soon as JI and JII audits become more widespread as part of food safety programmes.

This will also mean that assessment of food safety will come to play a greater role for suppliers of equipment and especially complete process lines. This is supported by the fact that the content of JI for designers focuses on risk management using HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), hygienic design management, and good industry practice.

This means that machine designers must increase their focus in practice on food safety and knowledge of risks related to specific products in the future. At the same time, it will gradually mean that food producers place more and more detailed requirements on their suppliers, as they are expected to be held accountable for hygienic design by their customers.

Implementation of the new GFSI requirements

Although the world will not change overnight, hygienic design and its integration into HACCP will be something all actors related to food production will have to address. Initially, this will be in connection with greenfield projects, where there is a need for increased interaction between customer and supplier - not only when requirements for processes are specified, but throughout the entire process through design and installation, and when the conditions for operation are to be established.

It must be expected that food producers will want to future-proof their investments, and that the equipment industry will naturally adapt to future requirements. Although it may be a challenge to handle requirements for new installations, this is minor compared with what is required to adapt existing process plants without this requiring major investments. Therefore, it is important that guidelines are developed that make it possible to adapt only essential details in existing process plants.

Going forward, there will be a need for new interpretations of hygienic design requirements, how they relate to active risk assessment in processes, and how existing process plants can be brought into line with the GFSI requirements with limited investment. In this context, the standardisation bodies EHEDG and the American 3-A Sanitary Standards are working together to produce a short guide on how, by taking their guidelines as a starting point, it is possible to meet requirements for hygienic design and implement relevant processes that support the requirements.

FORCE Technology is an EHEDG member and accredited to carry out certification of equipment in accordance with EHEDG’s guidelines, which means that we are centrally placed in this work. FORCE Technology will continue to share knowledge about hygienic design, offer training and certification, and support companies in meeting future food safety requirements.

Contact us to learn more.

The article was published in Plus Proces No. 6, 2020.