ISO 22000: Food safety

Can you identify food safety hazards?

What is ISO 22000?

ISO 22000 is an international standard for food safety management systems (FSMS) developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It provides a framework for organizations involved in the food chain to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve their food safety practices to ensure the safety of food products for consumers.

The primary goal of ISO 22000 is to help organizations identify and control food safety hazards throughout the food chain, from production to consumption, to prevent foodborne illnesses and ensure the safety and quality of food products. By adopting ISO 22000, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to food safety, comply with regulatory requirements, and enhance consumer confidence in their products.

Key elements of ISO 22000 include:

  • Food Safety Management System (FSMS):
  • Establishing a food safety management system based on the principles of hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) to identify, assess, and control food safety hazards.
  • Prerequisite Programs (PRPs):
  • Implementing prerequisite programs, such as good manufacturing practices (GMP), sanitation, hygiene, and food safety training, to create a hygienic environment and prevent contamination of food products.
  • Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP):
  • Conducting hazard analysis to identify potential biological, chemical, and physical hazards in the food production process and implementing control measures, monitoring procedures, and corrective actions to prevent or eliminate hazards.
  • Management Commitment and Responsibility:
  • Demonstrating leadership commitment to food safety, establishing food safety policies and objectives, and allocating resources to implement and maintain the food safety management system effectively.
  • Communication:
  • Establishing effective communication channels with suppliers, customers, regulators, and other relevant stakeholders to exchange information on food safety hazards, controls, and requirements.
  • Emergency Preparedness and Response:
  • Developing procedures and plans to respond to food safety emergencies, including product recalls, contamination incidents, and foodborne illness outbreaks, to protect consumers and minimize the impact on public health.

ISO 22000 certification involves a third-party audit to assess whether an organization’s food safety management system conforms to the requirements of the standard. Certification demonstrates to stakeholders, including customers, regulators, and consumers, that the organization is committed to ensuring the safety and quality of its food products and managing food safety risks effectively throughout the food chain.

Why ISO 22000 is Crucial for Your Business:

  • Ensuring Food Safety:
  • Establishes internationally recognized best practices for food safety management, including hazard analysis, risk assessment, and control measures.
  • Compliance with Regulatory Requirements:
  • Helps meet regulatory requirements and demonstrates commitment to food safety, ensuring adherence to relevant local, national, and international regulations.
  • Enhancing Consumer Trust:
  • Builds consumer confidence by assuring that robust food safety management systems are in place, enhancing trust, loyalty, and satisfaction.
  • Supply Chain Management:
  • Promotes effective communication and collaboration with suppliers, ensuring traceability of ingredients and materials and managing risks throughout the supply chain.
  • Operational Efficiency:
  • Emphasizes effective processes, documentation, and continuous improvement, leading to streamlined operations, optimized resource allocation, and reduced incidents and related costs.
  • International Recognition:
  • Internationally recognized, enhancing the business’s reputation and credibility globally. Facilitates trade by providing assurance to customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities worldwide.

ISO 22000 is crucial for your business as it ensures food safety, promotes regulatory compliance, enhances consumer trust, facilitates effective supply chain management, improves operational efficiency, and gains international recognition. Implementing this standard provides a structured approach to food safety management, enabling organizations to prevent foodborne hazards, protect consumers, and maintain the integrity of their food products.

The philosophy behind ISO 22000: Prevent food safety failures, and increase legal compliance.

If you are considering attaining Cyber Essentials  or Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation and want a pre-assessment evaluation to identify any areas where you might fail, then AEC can conduct a Readiness Assessment complete with a report advising on any areas where you need to make improvements, or changes, to pass the Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus certification/audit.

Working in partnership with our Certification Body we can conduct the audit and award the certificate if you meet all the criteria. One of our Cyber Assessors will link to you remotely to conduct an audit against the criteria specified for Cyber Essentials Plus.

AEC can provide additional support and guidance to identify any changes required for your environment to mitigate any problems with the  security posture that could cause any non-compliance or impact a successful certification. We also can provide additional ongoing guidance throughout the Cyber Essentials Certification process.

In order to get a fixed price proposal please complete the following Cyber Security Consultancy Next Steps and select Cyber Essentials Fixed Price Proposal

Notes about Cyber Essentials Plus Service Options 

  • The cost of a Cyber Essentials PLUS assessment will depend on the size and complexity of your network and devices.
  • Re-testing timescales are based on the NCSC guidelines.
  • You will need to complete your Cyber Essentials PLUS audit within 3 months of your last Cyber Essentials basic certification 

Legacy Operating Systems and Applications

Unsupported operating systems will not meet Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essential Plus certification and organisations often feel pressured to upgrade their systems, which could mean significantly increased costs and having to re-engineer applications to run on new platforms.

If you are developing, or have developed your own applications, you need to be able to deploy safely and securely and meet the requirements of Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus, this is where our Legacy Application Security solution from Droplet will enable you to meet the requirements without the additional burden and overhead of re-platforming your legacy applications and operating systems.

What Are the Benefits of Cyber Essentials? 

Most companies rely on digital offerings and services as part of their day to day business, but where there is information technology there is an element of information security risk. These organisations will at some time come under some form of threat from cyber criminals. This self-assessment and audited Cyber Essentials option will give you protection against a wide variety of the most common cyber-attacks.

Your Cyber Essentials certification will:

  • Reassure customers that you are working to secure your IT against cyber attack.
  • Attract new business with the assurance you have cyber security measures in place.
  • Give you a clear picture of your organisation’s cyber security level.
  • Present more business opportunities since some Government contracts require Cyber Essentials certification.
  • Reduce the risk of your organisation becoming a victim of a cyberattack.
  • Show your customers that you care about the security of their information and help you win their trust

Cyber Essentials technical requirements updated for April 2023

In April 2023, the NCSC and its Cyber Essentials delivery partner IASME will update the technical requirements for Cyber Essentials. This update is part of a regular review of the scheme’s technical controls, ensuring that it continues to help UK organisations guard against the most common cyber threats.

After a major update last year – the biggest update to the scheme since it was first set up in 2014 – the 2023 update will be lighter touch, providing a number of clarifications, alongside some important new guidance. This includes:

User devices.

With the exception of network devices (such as firewalls and routers), all user devices declared within the scope of the certification only require the make and operating system to be listed. We have removed the requirement for the applicant to list the model of the device. This change will be reflected in the self-assessment question set, rather than the requirements document.

Clarification on firmware.

All firmware is currently included in the definition of ‘software’, and so must be kept up to date and supported. Following feedback that this information can be difficult to find, we are changing this to include just router and firewall firmware.

Third party devices.

More information and a new table that clarify how third-party devices, such as contractor or student devices, should be treated in your application.

Device unlocking.

They have made a change there to mitigate some issues around default settings in devices being unconfigurable (such as the number of unsuccessful login attempts before the device is locked). Where that is the case, it’s now acceptable for applicants to use those default settings.

Malware protection.

Anti-malware software will no longer need to be signature based and they have clarified which mechanism is suitable for different types of devices. Sandboxing is removed as an option.

Zero Trust

New guidance on zero trust architecture for achieving CE and a note on the importance of asset management.

Style and language.

Several language and format changes have been made to make the document easier to read.

Structure updated.

The technical controls have been reordered to align with the updated self-assessment question set.

Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus Testing.

The CE+ Illustrative Test Specification document has been updated to align with the requirements changes. The biggest change there is a refreshed set of Malware Protection tests, to simplify the process for both applicants and assessors.

All these changes are based on feedback from assessors and applicants, and have been made in consultation with technical experts from the NCSC. As well as the updated requirements and new question set, IASME are also providing more guidance documents to help applicants during the certification process. This includes articles to help applicants understand the questions, as well as access to a dedicated knowledge base.

This latest update (version 3.1) will take effect from 24 April 2023. This means all applications started on or after this date will use the new requirements and question set.

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