Thoughts on including Vulnerability of the Product in the Risk Assessment

Hi all,

( 1st post - very nervous :) 

When risk assessing food safety hazards for determing ccps or other controls, using only Ocurrence and Severity might be very reductive and eventually send a lot of hazards to the decision tree ( I'm not afraid of that but...). Hazards such that would be normally dealth with by the sequent procedures and controls in place. e.g. any raw material can be physical contaminated during transport, either by pests, wood from a pallet, water when unloading etc. Of course even considering there are Pre-requisites in place as supplier management programs ( to evaluate hauling process), is just a matter of volume until it occurs, and with a reductive but solid system like Ocurrence ( has happened, might happen, unlikely to happen)  and a classical Severity system, if interperted in exhaustive way, might mutate a hazard that would be easily picked by any normal Goods in process check, that is not considering the packaging of the raw material in question, or the subquent steps that might eliminate that hazard from production. 

My questions is:

What is the chorus opinion on assessing on the risk assessment also a Vulnerability of the Product ( at that stage) category that is a measure that evaluates the criticality of controling the hazard at that point considering the product characteristics, stage of process, sequential steps and controls in place... 

General example of what would be rating and explanation for Vulnerability of the Product:

3- Open Product; No more measures in place able to control hazard; High Risk product due to intrinsic ( e.g. aW)  and extrinsic (e.g. packaging)  characteristics.

2- Open product with checks in place downstream; closed product in processing (e.g. replen, unloading); measures to control or prevent hazard in place.

1- Product protected from hazard contamination; Low Risk product due to intrinsic ( e.g. aW)  and extrinsic (e.g. packaging)  characteristics.

Thanks everyone in advance for your time and opinion.

Cheers

P

Hi Pedro,

If I understand yr 3 paras correctly -

No.1, I think, is (essentially) "built-in" to hazard analysis in conventional haccp.
Nos. (2,3) are (essentially) "built-in" to the hazard analysis in some published forms of traditional Codex haccp.

BRC also use something conceptually similar for several years in their FS Standard as an (operational) addition to the hazard analysis..