The effective enforcement of HACCP based food safety management

The effective enforcement of HACCP based food safety management systems in the UKRussell M.Green*,Kevin KaneSalford University Business School,Salford,United Kingdoma r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received21March2012 Received in revised form3September2013Accepted14September2013Keywords:Food safetyHACCPEHOEnforcementSME a b s t r a c tThis paper describes the research to determine the effectiveness of Environmental Health Officers,EHOs, in identifying and controlling the significant risks of foodborne illness in small catering operations in the UK.The research refers to food inspections carried out between1991and2004,a period which marked the introduction,into UK legislation,of the concept of risk based food safety management systems in1995.The work uses a single English local authority as a case study and employs an‘Archive Retrieval’methodology.The inspection reports on77Micro Owner/Managed Catering Businesses,MO/MCBs,over the period in question are deconstructed and each individual item identified as either‘visually apparent/ rule-based’or‘risk-based’.In this way the EHOs’findings are collated;consequently,the propensity of EHOs to identify the significant risks of foodborne illness as opposed to time spent identifying any visually apparent and rule-based misdemeanours is quantified.The results show that EHOs are relatively ineffective at identifying risk based issues in food safety inspection reports prior to the introduction of the risk based legislation and that there is little change afterwards.This research highlights a weakness in the concept of the implementation of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points,HACCP,in this sector,in that MO/MCBs do not have the scientific expertise to compre-hensively identify the significant risks in their businesses,while EHOs have the scientific knowledge but don’t appreciate the practical nuances of the systems within the business in sufficient detail to identify these potential problems.The research further highlights problems with the historic confrontational relationship between the EHO and the food operator and recognises the need to pool respective talents in order to effectively identify and control the significant risks of foodborne illness within the MO/MCB sector,thus demon-strating the need for a more cooperative approach to enforcement.Ó2013Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionThe gradual increase in the number of cases of foodborne illness through the latter part of the twentieth century brings into ques-tion the effectiveness of the enforcement of such risk in the MO/ MCB sector of United Kingdom,UK,catering businesses;a situation dramatically and tragically demonstrated in November1996in Wishaw,Scotland when twenty one people died as a result of an outbreak of Escherichia coli157food poisoning;at the inquiry into the deaths the Independent newspaper reported that Sheriff Principal Graham Cox criticised EHOs,for failing to spot the hazards inherent in the operation of the premises(Arthur,1998).The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations/ World Health Organisation,FAO/WHO,Pan-European Conference on food safety and quality(FAO/WHO,2002)concluded that the majority of the significant risks of foodborne illness fall within the fields of temperature control and the control of the contamination of food,often a combination of the two.It is axiomatic that the reason for food safety legislation and its enforcement is the control of foodborne illness;it is,therefore,essentially those aspects of the food operation relating to temperature and contamination that need to be controlled.Food safety is not about the blind application of rules which may or may not have any bearing on the actual risk of foodborne illness in any particular enterprise;it is about con-trolling that scientifically proven significant risk.*Corresponding author.Elmbeds,1Elmbeds Road,Higher Poynton,Stockport, Cheshire SK121TG,United Kingdom.Tel.:þ447895384257.E-mail address:elmbeds@(R.M.Green).Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Controljournal ho me page:www.elsevier.co m/locate/foodcont0956-7135/$e see front matterÓ2013Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved./10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.09.016Food Control37(2014)257e262The period of study in this research coincides with a change in the philosophy of food legislation which saw the emphasis evolve from one of prescriptive legislation to legislation which is based on an assessment of the risk.Before the concept of a risk based method of food safety man-agement,food safety control followed a traditional approach, honed over many of years of often arbitrary‘dos’and‘don’ts’rules and regulations,which culminated in legislation that Motarjemi, Kaferstein,Moy,Miyagawa,and Miyagishima(1996)describe as relying on snap-shot inspections and end-product testing.The UK legislation in operation immediately prior to this change,The Food Hygiene(General)Regulations1970(HMSO,1970)and The Food Act1984(HMSO,1984),relied on such snap-shot inspections and end-product testing and attempted to control the risks by two means;firstly specific standards for temperature related issues and cross contamination,where possible,were prescribed and sec-ondly,enforcement officers were trained to identify general areas of possible risk.However these risk based aspects were overwhelmed by a plethora of rules and standards that demanded a dispropor-tionate amount of attention.In response to European Directive43/93(EU,1993)the UK introduced new legislation,The Food Safety(General Food Hy-giene)Regulations1995(HMSO,1995)which stated that food op-erations should adopt a food safety management system based on the philosophy of identified significant risk similar to that described by the Codex Alimentarius Commission,CAC,under the name Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point,HACCP(Codex,1993). HACCP is specifically defined by the CAC and contains seven prin-ciples;however The Food Safety(General Food Hygiene)Regula-tions1995(HMSO,1995)does not contain all seven of these principles and does not actually use the word HACCP.The omissions include the requirement to document&record hazards which is of particular significance with regard to the subject of enforcement,it is,however,in essence HACCP based(Bell,2006).Consequently this truncated form of HACCP is afforded the acronym HACCP95in this work when referring to the risk based food safety management system as required by The Food Safety(General Food Hygiene) Regulations1995(HMSO,1995);while HACCP is used throughout this work to refer to a risk based food safety management system incorporating the full definition of HACCP according to the CAC (Codex,2009).The catering sector in the UK comprises60%of all food busi-nesses(Taylor,Assan,Green,Mccann,&Rodriguez,2008)and pri-marily consists of small businesses,as defined by the European Commission(2003)(Airey,2002;Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform,2006).In fact it is a sub-division of the small business sector,the very small or‘micro’businesses,employing less than ten employees,which account for 87%of catering businesses(Food Standards Agency,2003).Such businesses have their own particular culture and associated prob-lems(Gilling,Taylor,Kane,&Taylor,2001;Panisello&Quantick, 2001;Storey,1994;Taylor,2001;Taylor&Taylor,2004).It is this sector which is the subject of this research,namely those owner/ managed businesses preparing hot and cold plated meals and employing fewer than ten staff or full time equivalents,for con-venience the subject group is referred to as the Micro Owner/ Managed Catering Businesses(MO/MCB)sector in this research.Although the benefits of a risk based food safety management system were known and promoted prior to implementation of The Food Safety(General Food Hygiene)Regulations1995(LACOTS, 1993)the food businesses were slow to embrace it(Ehiri,Morris, &McEwen,1995;Panisello,Quantick,&Knowles,1999)thus emphasising the need for enforcement.The law is usually considered to be enforced by the EHO;this is not strictly true as the title EHO specifically refers to someone holding a particular qualification(HMSO,2007a),however,the title EHO is widely used in a generic manner in both academic literature and Government reports,therefore for the purposes of this work all appointed food safety enforcement officers involved in the in-spection of food premises are referred to by the title EHO.An additional role is also recognised for the EHO with regard to the effective implementation and sustainability of risk based food safety management systems,that being the role of consultant and facilitator(Panisello&Quantick,2001;Taylor,2001),a principle which is endorsed by the Government in the Enforcement Concordat(DTI,2003)in the statement;The principles of good enforcement are best carried out througha partnership approach to enforcement,with enforcers andbusinesses working together to achieve regulatory compliance.This approach particularly helps small businesses to understand and meet its responsibilities more easily.It also helps to achieve higher levels of compliance and gives greater consumer and employee safety.This,however,creates something of a conundrum in the mind of the EHO with particular regard to the implementation and sus-tainability of HACCP;is he a policeman or a consultant,a‘sheriff or a social worker’?History and established protocols combine to create an adver-sarial cultural stereotype in the minds of both the EHO and the food business operator that the EHO exists to enforce the law;the concept that the EHO and food business operator could work in harmony to improve food safety is largely alien to this situation requiring a cultural sea-change on behalf of both parties.This legislation(HMSO,1995)puts the onus on the business to identify risk;however,the particular business sector to which the majority of caterers belong does not have the scientific or technical expertise to adequately implement the law(FSAI,2001;Mortlock, Peters,&Griffith,1999;Taylor,2001;Taylor&Forte,2008).They are,therefore unlikely to be able to comply without guidance; which they want in a concise,clear,targeted form aimed specif-ically at their business(Fairman&Yapp,2003).The main source of expert information comes from the local EHO during the regular food safety inspection(Fairman&Yapp,2004),a situation which itself has not always been trouble free(Henson&Heasman,1998; Taylor,2007,2008).There is also the problem that in practice mi-cro size catering businesses are reluctant to proactively seek advice from EHOs(Hutter&Jones,2006).Small businesses see compliance as an integral aspect of the enforcement process;they believe that unless an enforcer has identified a misdemeanour they are in compliance with the law(Fairman&Yapp,2004).On the other hand EHOsfind behavioural or soft control options,such as iden-tifying areas of significant risk from within a food operation,diffi-cult to evaluate during enforcement inspections;they will concentrate on externally produced rules and standards which can be ascertained by visual inspection and interrogation of docu-ments.The result is that the significant risks can go undetected and uncontrolled(Fairman&Yapp,2005;Rudder,1996).This research examines the standards of food safety in catering businesses in the context of enforcement action through this transition period of prescriptive to risk based food safety man-agement with a view to exploring how EHOs adapted to the new regime of risk based food safety management in terms of inspection content.2.MethodFor practical reasons a single local authority was chosen and while no claim is made that it represents all of the nuances of UK food operations it does contain all the major elements likely to beR.M.Green,K.Kane/Food Control37(2014)257e262 258encountered by EHOs.The research was undertaken in semi-rural authority in the North West of England,consisting of four main centres of population accounting for25,750,17,630,12,578,and 13,101people respectively,together with an additional rural pop-ulation of21,596;the area is relatively affluent with overall owner occupancy of82.09%(Office for National Statistics,2001).The catering sector within the target authority is similar to that else-where in the UK in that it is large and diverse(Taylor,2008),it covers a broad spectrum of activities including;restaurants,cafes, take-aways,street vendors,hospitals,schools,factories,residential hotels,and other places where food is produced for immediate consumption.The authority is neither good nor bad in terms of enforcement data returned to the government.This work quantitatively examines the food safety history of allrelevant premises within the sample;i.e.MO/MCBs during the period1991to2004,in order to compare the effectiveness in identifying both visual/rule based items and significant risks.Archived inspection reports are used as the data source rather than interviewing individual EHOs;thus using original material,i.e. the contemporaneous reports,in order to ascertain what significant risks were actually identified.The reason being that this is the data in which the approach taken by the EHOs in identifying significant risks actually manifests itself,not the way in which the EHOs might like to think they approach the identification of significant risk.This has obvious advantages in that this correspondence;details the actual items identified at each inspection by the EHOs i.e.those officers whose attitudes are being examinedis the opinion of officials trained to apply the same standards ina consistent manner,was made from contemporaneous notes,does not rely on memory,is part of a verified system which is capable of withstanding legal scrutiny.The data was retrieved from this archive by devising a classifi-cation system for the information which identified visual/rule-based items and significant risks.Each of77paperfiles accumu-lated over the period1991e2004was manually interrogated and the required information extracted.By deconstructing the corre-spondence and sorting the information into the predetermined classifications it could then be tabulated and analysed quantitatively.3.Identification of groupingsThe inspection reports,therefore,effectively consist of a list of items which fall short of legal requirements or recognised good practice.The items reflect whether or not they are a legal requirement in that they are divided accordingly as‘statutory’and ‘recommended’as specified in Code of Practice(HMSO,1995) however,no such differentiation is made when compiling the sta-tistics in this research.Visually apparent/rule-based items are defined as items relating to;design and construction,facilities,equipment,storage,and cleaning regimes,they are‘rule based physical pre-requisites’, including their maintenance,which are necessary for a HACCP system to be effective but they are not scientifically proven signif-icant risks liable to cause foodborne illness.Risk-based items are those derived from the FAO/WHO(2002), which concludes that the most important elements in food borne disease are cross contamination and temperature control,either cooking or chilling,consequently items relating to these hazards are those items which are selected as those which represented the significant risks.This would include any practices,either observed or divulged by the food business operator during questioning, which might result in a risk of foodborne illness.Not every item could be neatly pigeon-holed and greater expla-nation of the nuances of the interpretation is addressed in the indi-vidual sections.The question of temperature control is a slight contradiction in that there were,at the time,prescriptive tempera-tures for food storage and therefore could be said to be rule based,but such items clearly fall within the categories singled out as risks by the FAO/WHO and so were counted as significant risks.Another area which requires some interpretation is cleaning;this is classified as a visually apparent item in this context.Although cleaning items can give rise to cross contamination the cleaning items identified in this section are those items which represent a low risk.Items such as a dirtyfloor are easy to see during a spot inspection but are unlikely to give rise to cross contamination since the food is not in contact with thefloor,consequently this section represents visual/rule based items.Cleaning items of cross contamination relevance would fall into the Cross Contamination definition such as a dirtyfloor in combination with a pest problem or a dirty piece of equipment which is in direct contact with food such as a slicer.In a similar way storage items in this context are not a significant risk except where the storage problem impinges on temperature or cross contamination.In the above way the items on each inspection report were allocated to a particular category thereby enabling the numbers of items in each category to be compared as they occurred on the reports for the business over a period of14years.The correspon-dence for all77businesses was subject to this deconstruction and itemisation and the results compared;thus it was possible to ascertain the average number of times any particular category occurred in any particular year.4.AnalysisGraphs were drawn for each category showing the average number of times the particular category appears in correspondence for each year,thereby illustratingfluctuations over the period.The graphs are presented in their entire form i.e.1991to2004and are also sub-divided before and after1995and trend lines put on the graphs in order to demonstrate any differences between the two periods,i.e.before and after the legal need for HACCP95.Here an assumption has to be made that,by averaging77sets of figures,any peaks due to individual circumstances will be ironed out;for example any individual idiosyncrasies of particular EHOs would be evened out by the fact that the work of12officers comprised the database over the period of14years.In this way any rises and falls in the number of times a particular category of items was recorded in any particular year is dependent on the priority given it by the EHO as a result of national or local direction or personal inclination.This research thus answers the question‘how effective are food safety enforcement methods in identifying the significant risksof 0123456199119921993199419951996199719981999221222324ItemsperletterFig.1.Overall picture of items identified in inspection reports.R.M.Green,K.Kane/Food Control37(2014)257e262259an outbreak of foodborne illness from arising in the MO/MCB sector?’5.ResultsThe relative effectiveness in enforcing the visually apparent and rule based problems as compared with the effectiveness in enforcing signi ficant risks within the system can be appreciated by comparing the visually apparent physical prerequisites,(Design &Construction,Facilities,Equipment),Cleaning and Storage items,with those concerned with the control of signi ficant risk of food-borne illness i.e.cross contamination,cooking,and chilling.Fig.1shows that with regard to design and construction and equipment categories these are found regularly many more times per inspection report than risk associated items,with an approxi-mate average of more than 2per letter as opposed to less than one risk item mentioned per letter.Facilities prerequisites are at a more similar level to risk associated items,however,the number of cleaning items per letter starts steadily at around 3per letter,a similar level to design and construction and equipment items,but then from 2000increases steadily to around 5items per letter.Thus by 2004cleaning is by far the most frequently identi fied problem in food safety inspection reports accounting for almost twice as many mentions in each letter as any other individual category.The importance of cleaning in the food workplace has already been discussed but the reason for it receiving more attention than thetotal of risk associated items,almost 5as opposed to 3.5,is dif ficult to understand except that it is much easier and quicker to spot a dirty floor or wall than to interrogate a chef as to his operational details such as the times and temperatures he aims to achieve when preparing a Chicken Kiev on a busy Saturday night.This relationship between visually obvious/rule based items and the items of signi ficant risk is best demonstrated by combining the physical prerequisites,cleaning,and storage items on the one hand and comparing them with the combined signi ficant risks as found in the cross contamination,cooking,chilling categories as shown in Fig.2a.What is particularly well shown in Fig.2a is that there are many more of the visually apparent/rule based items than the risk based items evident in the inspection reports.There is at least 10fold difference in favour of the visually/rule based items except for the last result in 2004when the visual/rule based items fall slightly,the trend lines,however,show the gap to continue to widen.This could be a result of greater problems in those visually apparent/rule based areas or,I suggest more likely,the fact that it is more dif ficult for an EHO to assess a risk based problem which is embedded in the system of food production and involves discus-sing the system with the staff rather than simply reporting what is seen (Fairman &Yapp,2005).The conclusion of this exercise is therefore that the traditional inspection protocol involving ‘snap-shot ’inspections favours the identi fication of visually apparent/rule based misdemeanours and is less effective in identifying those items which represent a signi ficant risk of an outbreak of foodborne illness.6.DiscussionEnforcement details as published by Central Government sour-ces are in a very unspeci fic,generalised form except where prose-cutions result;since only approximately 1%of inspections result in a prosecution (FSA as referred to in (Fairman &Yapp,2005))this disenfranchises 99%of inspections.This research considered all enforcement actions over a 14year period in detail,irrespective of follow up action,thereby creating a database which is much more inclusive than that previously available from Central Government data.Design and Construction items are considered alongside Facil-ities and Equipment since all are essentially physical items which are visual and/or rule based.The study shows that there is a general rise in Design and Construction and Equipment items and a general fall in Facilities over the entire period;however,when looked at in more detail,all these physical parameters fall between 1991and 1995and then rise from 1995to 2004.With regard to those items relating to Cleaning an overall up-ward trend is apparent from 1991to 2004,but further consider-ation shows virtually no difference between 1991and 1995followed by a rise in incidents identi fied from 1995to 2004.The storage items in letters fall from 1991to 1995and then rise to 2004thus giving an overall rise.The above parameters,therefore;Design and Construction,Fa-cilities,Equipment,Cleaning and Storage are all the type of visual/rule based items which an EHO is likely to concentrate on as opposed to the behavioural or soft-control options such as risk based systems as suggested by Fairman and Yapp (2005)and found by Rudder (1996).It is important to note that the trends in these parameters post 1995show that the EHOs show very little ten-dency to proportionately reduce the attention given to visual/rule based items as a result of the introduction of HACCP95(HMSO,1995)requiring a risk based approach.The figures relating to Cross Contamination show an overall increase from 1991to 2004but again a more detailedconsideration199199199199199199199199199200200200200200I t e m s p e r l e t t e r19911992199319941995I t e m s p e r l e t t e r2468101214161995199619971998199920002001200220032004I t e m s p e r l e t t e rabcFig.2.Visually apparent/rule based items compared with signi ficant risk based items.(a):Overall.(b):1991to 1995.(c):1995to 2004.R.M.Green,K.Kane /Food Control 37(2014)257e 262260shows a decrease from1991to1995and an increase from1995to 2004.Cooking and Chilling on the other hand show a general rise throughout1991to2004.Both Cooking and Chilling show a rise between1991and1995and a further rise between1995and2004, however,cooking items are so rare before1995,only one item in all inspection reports between1991and1995,that any trend is rather meaningless.Cross Contamination,Cooking and Chilling are those items which are identified by the World Health Organisation as causing the vast majority of foodborne illness(FAO/WHO,2002)and can therefore be considered to represent a significant risk.Since the 1995legislation(HMSO,1995)introduces a requirement to identify risks in a food operation it might be expected that following1995 there would be a marked rise in these items identified in EHOs’inspection reports;there are,in fact,rises in all three parameters but they are still far below the number of the visual/rule based items identified in the reports.When the total of all visual/rule based items is compared with that of risk based items,both show an overall rise between1991 and2004and a rise from1995to2004;however the numbers involved are very different.The research shows that while the mean number of risk based items per inspection report post HACCP95more than doubles,1.5,as compared to the mean number of risk based items per inspection report prior to HACCP95,0.6;this only represents an increase of less than one item per inspection report;this is still very low when compared with the numbers of visual/rule based items,9.4as opposed to9.5items per letter respectively.Table1Therefore while post1995there is a very small drop in the mean number of visual/rule based items in each inspection report this number is still much higher than the risk based items in the letters. The mean number of risk based items in each inspection report does increase by2.5times over the period from1991to2004showing that the EHOs are looking more closely for items of significant risk but they are spending much more effort still looking for the visual/ rule based items that theyfind easier(Fairman&Yapp,2005).7.ConclusionAnalysis of the data quantitatively supports and enhances earlier work which suggested that there is a tendency for EHOs to identify visual/rule based items as opposed to items which repre-sent a significant risk of foodborne illness.The study of the archived records in the case study show clearly that over the period from 1991to2004there were many more examples of the visually apparent items than the risk based items evident in the letters. There was frequently at least a10fold difference in favour of the visually/rule based items except for the last result in2004when the visual items fall slightly and the risk based items rise to give a difference of more like4fold.It must be appreciated that local authorities realised that the introduction of a risk based system would take time and a‘softly, softly’approached was advocated with priority being given to larger businesses in order to gain experience in using such a new approach.Therefore the enforcement of the implementation of such systems was subject to the policies&priorities of individual local authorities&their EHO manager and,consequently,care must be taken when attempting to extrapolate these results from a single local authority to a national scale.In addition to this the effective checking of a HACCP system depends on the EHO being able to see what risks have been considered and the type of controls imple-mented by the business to prevent these from actually occurring. Consequently the frequent absence of any documentation,specif-ically omitted from HACCP95,meant that enforcement proved extremely difficult to the EHO.Nonetheless with regard to the local authority in question,the trends and means for the periods pre and post the introduction of a risk-based philosophy in1995,show a slight decline1991to1995 for both visually based items per letter and risk based items per letter;whereas there is a rise from1995to2004.The significance of 1995being that that was the year when a risk based HACCP approach was introduced therefore it might be expected that more effort would be put into identifying risk based items in a business. However,these results show that although there was an increasing trend for EHOs to identify risk based items post1995on average it was only14%of the total effort with86%still being devoted to the identification of visual/rule based items.The conclusion of this exercise is,therefore,that the traditional EHO inspection protocol involving‘snap-shot’inspections is rela-tively ineffective in identifying the significant risks underlying foodborne illness and also that EHOs continue to primarily pursue a ‘walls,floors,ceilings’approach to inspections.This supports the literature which suggests that the EHO is more comfortable with this as opposed to interrogating the actual systems to reveal the significant risks.Since this work was concluded significant changes have been introduced.Regulation(EC)No.852/2004Article5(EU,2004)finally recognises the full7principles of HACCP&this is incorpo-rated into English legislation by The Food Hygiene(England)Reg-ulations2006(HMSO,2006),with similar legislation introducing the European requirements into Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland(The interest aroused by the introduction of this Regulation (EU,2004)might account for the increase in risk items witnessed in 2004).Following this the FSA introduced Safer Food,Better Busi-ness,SFBB,a package to facilitate the documentation of HACCP in smaller food operations;and more recently a Food Hygiene Rating System,FHRS,which has become known colloquially as‘Scores on the doors’,and is available for public scrutiny.Used properly SFBB will help highlight areas of potential risk in a food operation and the means to control them,however in order to achieve the maximum effect greater efforts must be made to recruit the assistance of the food business operators themselves in liaising with EHOs in explaining their operation and bringing areas of concern to the EHO which might not come to light in the course of a normal inspection.Scores on the doors has the benefit of intro-ducing hygiene into the public’s perception of where to eat,how-ever it is not strictly‘risk based’.It is suggested that future work should be targeted in two ways. Firstly,to ensure that the EHO’s time and efforts are directed more toward risk as opposed to visual/rule based misdemeanours, although this situation has been partially addressed by SFBB& FHRS.This might be improved still by priority inspection areas in a similar way to that used in occupational health in the Health& Safety Executive(HSE)Internal Health&Safety Corporate Plan 2007/08(HMSO,2007b).In this document those areas statistically responsible for most accidents are identified and enforcement of-ficers told to concentrate their efforts in controlling these issues. And secondly,to study the relationship between the EHO and the food business in order to develop liaison between the two,in order that the food business operator might explain their operation and bring areas of doubt to the attention of the EHO with a view to using their joint areas of expertise to ameliorate the problem.Table1Mean items per letter,visual/rule based compared with risk based.Parameter Mean items/letter1991e1995Mean items/letter 1995e2004Visual/rule based9.59.4Risk based0.6 1.5R.M.Green,K.Kane/Food Control37(2014)257e262261。