Food Safety Emergency Preparedness Procedure

Hai all,

We had our BRC audit last week and there were 5 minor non-conformities, one of them was about the emergency preparedness in relation to the safety of the product (As we havent identified the emergency situations pertaining to the safety of the product and the responsibility of the team members were not defined). I would like to have some clear idea about the situation, if possible kindly provide me with a sample emergency preparedness procedure with all the possible situations in food processing industry,

kind regards,

QAMalpha. 

As my forum name would suggest I'm a SQF guy, but I assume that the answer to your question would likely be similar in both schemes.

In the event of an emergency or crisis (ex. flood, fire, wind damage, etc.), "situations pertaining to the safety of the product and the responsibility of the team members" would involve your Food Safety Team (or equivilant) to assess raw materials, work in progress, finished product, and the production area and equipment to determine if product, equipment, and physical production space has been affected by the emergency.

Decisions re. the dispositions of any potentially affected product and any necessary corrective actions for repair or cleaning and sanitation of processing/packaging equipment and the production area need to be thouroughly documented (photos, videos, written descriptions, meeting minutes, etc.).