agreementthat required foodhygiene legislationto be basedon risk assessment,
and the increased use of HACCP and other assessment-basedquality systems in
the food industry. The Codex Alimentarius and other organisations have
publisheda numberof largerisk assessments recently.Theserisk assessments
tendto havea biastowards the developed countriesof NorthAmerica and
western Europe.It is to be expectedthat in future risk assessments will also be
carried out on foodsand production methodsusedin developingcountries and
non-westerncultures.
In the past decade muchefforthas beenput in the developmentof methods
for risk assessment, and muchknowledge has beengainedfroma number of
publishedrisk assessments. It is expectedthat in the comingyearsthese methods
and this knowledgewill be usedby foodindustry in hygiene management, for
example by improving theirHACCPsystems.
A furthertrendmay be towards usingquantitative risk assessmentapproaches
to assessthe effectof hygienecontrolmeasuresthat normallydo not fall under
HACCP,but are included in GMP,such as hand-washing or the use of
hygienically designed equipment. Moreover, computer programs for risk
assessmentand risk calculationswillbe furtherdevelopedin the nextyears
and maywellbe linkedto extensive databases.
20.5 Sourcesof furtherinformation and advice
Books
ALLII.,Foodqualityassurance± Principlesand practices, CRCPress,BocaRaton,2004.
CORLETT D.A.,HACCPuser'smanual, AspenPublishers,Gaithersburg,1998.
FORSYTHES.J.,The microbiologicalrisk assessmentof food, BlackwellScience,Oxford,
2002.
Internetpages
CodexAlimentariusCommission(www.codexalimentarius.net)
FDABad Bug Book(http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/intro.html)
FoodSafetyRiskAnalysisClearingHouse(http://www.foodriskclearinghouse.umd.edu/)
WorldHealthOrganisation(http://www.who.int/foodsafety/micro/riskassessment/en/)
(aboutrisk assessment)
20.6 References
ANON(1995),Agreementon the Applicationof Sanitaryand PhytosanitaryMeasures,
WorldTradeOrganisation,Geneva,http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/
15-sps.pdf
ANON(2000),TheCartagena protocolon biosafetyhttp://www.biodiv.org/biosafety/
articles.asp
CAC(1997),RecommendedInternationalCodeof Practice± GeneralPrinciplesof Food
Hygiene.CAC/RCP1-1969.CodexAlimentariusCommission,Rome.
322 Handbookof hygiene controlin the foodindustry