7^th European Food Safety & Standards Conference

The evolution of the HACCP system during the second half of the twentieth century, from its roots in the U.S. space program to its present use for consumer foods worldwide, can be traced through several milestones and through a series of formal recognition and adoption activities by the food industry, government regulatory agencies, and national and international scientific and professional organizations. The changes that HACCP has undergone have built a complete food safety management system (FSMS) with increased efficiency and effectiveness. It is well established nowadays that FSMS are not enough and Quality assurance systems are intended to provide confidence to a food company’s management, its customers and to government regulatory agencies that the company is capable of meeting the food quality and food safety requirements. Food safety and quality assurance are now parts of Quality management systems which include quality planning and improvement activities, in addition to quality control and assurance activities. These systems are intended to provide a company with the capability to meet all quality requirements. In this study, the evolution of Food Safety programs into Quality Management systems is described