40.1 Introduction
Auditing for hygiene improvement may be seen as an oxymoron. ISO 9001
defines an audit as a Systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled.' Audits are being carried out for purposes other than ISO certification, but there is a general perception that audits are for determining compliance, with or without certification of some kind. Audit reports point out non-conformances, supporting the auditees in their effort to meet all requirements of the predefined standard they were audited against. Where improvement is the primary purpose, a far more ambitious, though less precisely defined goal, than compliance, the termassessment' is often used.
For our present purposes we will continue to use the word audit' in the context of various possible purposes and design characteristics of this type of exercise. The subject matter of our audit for improvement is hygiene, or rather the hygiene management system (HMS), i.e. the management system that establishes and maintains hygienic conditions in the facility in question (our primary focus will be on food manufacturing sites, although most of the considerations will equally apply to warehouses, kitchens, etc.). According to the Codex definition,Food hygiene' comprises `all conditions
and measures to ensure the safety and suitability of food at all stages of the food
chain',^1 but that is too wide for our present purposes because it would include
HACCP into the HMS.
The relation between hygiene and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point
(HACCP) is often explained in terms of hygiene being a prerequisite pro-
gramme. Early in the HACCP decision tree, a distinction needs to be made
40 Improvinghygiene auditing....
P. Overbosch, Kraft Foods, Germany