Food safety management standard ISO 22000

Japan's imports of vegetables from China have decreased since late January when tainted Chinese-made meat dumplings caused several cases of food poisoning. Kyodo quotes a preliminary government survey that reveals that Japan imported 20,704 tons of vegetables from China in the first three weeks of February, down 39.7% from a year earlier, said the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

In spite of some media reports, China appears to be very cautious about the gyoza scandal. Officially, they seem perplexed about the level of scrutiny, and at loss about how to deal with the situation. China Daily notes that the investigation continues:

China on Thursday said its investigation into the dumpling poisoning incident would continue and no unilateral conclusion should be drawn before the truth was discovered. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang made the remarks at a regular press conference, noting that the incident was a cross-border one concerning food safety and could not be solved without cooperation between China and Japan. Qin stressed that the Chinese government had always attached great importance to food safety and taken a highly responsible attitude towards both domestic and foreign consumers.

So far, it is still not clear where the contamination took place. This is of course unacceptable. If the Chinese factory has no records of their production, they should not be exporting food. Blogger GlobalTalk 21 notes that the Chinese take losing face very seriously, and that China would have continued in a far more cooperative vein if their Japanese counterparts had been willing to work outside the glare of the Japanese media. He notes that that, of course, is impossible in an open society like Japan.

The good news is that this week, JT indicated that they will reduce their reliance on Chinese-made products, and implement the ISO 22000 food safety management standard to be able to continue selling safe products. The JT Group notes on its website (pdf) that they will require all suppliers to secure ISO 22000 food safety management system certificates from the International Organization for Standardization within the next two years and will require the certification as a prerequisite for production of food products on behalf of JT. Currently, JT's frozen food is produced at 17 factories in China, 11 of which belong to Chinese companies, including Tianyang Food, the producer of the suspect dumplings.

What is the ISO 22000?

ISO 22000:2005 specifies requirements to enable an organization

-- to plan, implement, operate, maintain and update a food safety management system aimed at providing products that, according to their intended use, are safe for the consumer,

-- to demonstrate compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory food safety requirements,

-- to evaluate and assess customer requirements and demonstrate conformity with those mutually agreed customer requirements that relate to food safety, in order to enhance customer satisfaction,

-- to effectively communicate food safety issues to their suppliers, customers and relevant interested parties in the food chain,

-- to ensure that the organization conforms to its stated food safety policy,

-- to demonstrate such conformity to relevant interested parties, and

-- to seek certification or registration of its food safety management system by an external organization, or make a self-assessment or self-declaration of conformity to ISO 22000:2005.

(Graph from Asia Food Journal: ISO 22000: Market Decides: Top Or Flop?)