Financial Times

The need for ISO 22000 for the tea industry
By Dr. Srilal de Silva President of Sri Lanka Association for Quality (SLAQ)
A new dimension for the food safety management emerged with the release of ISO 22000 by ISO in September 2005, is expected to become the ultimate international standard for the food industry. ISO 22000 harmonizes the food safety approached internationally and provides a tool to build the current formalized method of assessing food safety, hazard Analysis and critical control point (HACCP), to a standard suitable for all industry stake holders.

ISO 22000 overrides all other national standards (Denmark, Ireland), Association (Netherlands) and such similar standards. Quality World (IQA) states that ‘ISO 22000 is set to bring direction to the chaotic world of food standards’. In the absence of an international standard, the only document that was of international acceptability was the CODEX guide on HACCP. This was meant to be a guide explaining the core process of food safety or seven principles of HACCP, and not really meant to be ‘standard for certification’ and it was meant to be only a guide.

The current demand by the retailers for the standards in specific markets such as British Retail Consortium (BRC) in UK, international food standard (IFS) on Germany and France, both have similar approaches. These as well as EurepGAP standard for the farming sector focusing on compliance to few specific control points are expected to be gradually replaced by ISO 220000.

Whilst all food standards have one common objective of achieving food safety, the approach, objectives and mechanisms tend to vary. Most of these standards have evolved for a particular sector of the food industry, whereas ISO 22000 applies to all organizations the food chain, including those interrelated organizations such as equipment and additive produces. These include feed services (feed and fertilizer), machinery and equipment, harvesters, farmers, producers of ingredients (including pesticides and weedicides) , food manufacturers, retailers, food services, catering services, organizations providing cleaning and sanitation services, transportation, storage and distribution services.

With this changing scenario of changing food safety measures, the tea industry which is the leading food industry having a serious impact on the economy in Sri Lanka and branded as ‘Ceylon Tea’ should develop a good plan to exploit this situation. The lead it had over other countries based on ‘quality’ and ‘cleanliness’ should not be allowed to be diluted and lose the competitiveness at the international market.

The sluggish approach of the tea industry was amply demonstrated when shaken out of slumber with the introduction of the EU regulations on food safety. The white paper was introduced in 2000 and the regulations were issued in 2004 with the date of implementation as 1st January 2006.
The industry is still in a confused state in trying to find measures to wriggle out of the situation and look for patchwork approach. The industry should learn a lesson at least now and look for a vision beyond ISO 22000. Stakeholders both in the state and the private sector are sticking to interpretation which suits their own interests.

The present state is for industry to look for certification ‘cheap in quality’ and to meet the bare minimum in trying to meet EU requirements. Other stakeholders providing support services (certification, testing and advisory services) both in the state and private sector and planners merely trying to exploit this thereby losing direction further compounds this situation.
It appears that the industry prefers to be ‘reactive’ rather than ‘proactive’ as the present approach is to meet the minimum requirement to qualify by having HACCP, a heap of paper as one CEO of a RPC referred to, and many had already sought HACCP certification just to meet the EU requirement.

Even developing HACCP is considered a luxury by some sectors as this is still in the statutes only in the EU. So the ‘wait and see’ approach seems to continue.

The introduction of EU regulations and in looking at measures for meeting these requirements the main concerns emerged were poor infrastructure to meet the hygienic requirements and limitations in awareness in quality management and food safety. This is a clear indication that the tea industry had been gradually falling behind despite many changes taking place internationally. It is reported that some facilities are really established for the 19th century requirements and not improved and as such major improvements are needed. The Sri Lanka Association for Quality (SLAQ) has been constantly agitating to introduce a new dimension for quality management in the tea industry. In line with this, SLAQ is very impressed with the declaration of the policy of the Ministry of Plantation Industries for recognizing ISO 22000 as the base for food safety management in the tea industry.

The industry must visualize the position in the next few years to come with possible challenges from new producers such as Vietnam, and develop a vision using ISO 22000 and have a ‘leap frog approach’ and look where the industry wants to be in the years to come.

A paradigm shift in the approach leading to attitudinal changes is required from all stakeholders to meet these challenges. Introducing ISO 22000 should be considered a beginning of a change rather than the narrow goal of achieving HACCP requirements.

ISO 22000 requires organizations to ensure continual improvement of the effectiveness of the food safety management system. This standard introduces communication, management review, internal auditing, and evaluation of results of verification, validation of controls, corrective actions and updating of FSMS. Some of these are not found in a pure HACCP thereby exposing the limitations as a management tool.

The present initiatives made on 5S which has its origin in 1940’s in Japan and HACCP 1950’s in USA are all incorporated in different segments of ISO 22000. ISO 22000 backed up with modern quality and productivity concepts of benchmarking, Six Sigma could be incorporated in a package for the industry to emerge as the undisputed world leader.

Application of other ISO systems such as 9001: 2000 (quality), 14001:2004 (environment) which could be linked to ISO 22000 will provide an overall package for the improvement and stronger marketing opportunities for the industry.

These could be associated with a unique product mark such as ‘Lion Logo’ with accreditation from an internationally reputed accreditation board which will support the overall approach for quality management in the tea industry.
This will require organized training and consultant service providers of international repute and SLAQ as the professional body in quality management, with the support of affiliated bodies such as American Society for Quality (ASQ), Institute of Quality Assurance (UK) and also SLAQ member bodies will gear to provide these services. The many associations of the tea industry should join hands in making this project a success.

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