Motion of ISO 17020 in Food Safety!

With the news that food safety inspections will be outsourced (transferred) by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Food Sector has become active. According to the standard titled ISO 17020 GENERAL CRITERIA FOR THE OPERATION OF VARIOUS TYPES OF INSPECTION BODIES, it is being discussed that accredited inspection bodies may be eligible to take over this responsibility.

In the ISO 17020 standard, Inspection is defined as the examination of product design, the product, process, and factory, and the determination of their conformity based on specific conditions or professional evaluations. In this sense, inspection in the food sector can be interpreted as the auditing of Food Factories according to hygiene standards (specified hygiene guidelines), product regulations, the supervision of food products according to foreign trade standardizations, and the testing of compliance with current product legal regulations in laboratories.

The ISO 17020 GENERAL CRITERIA FOR THE OPERATION OF VARIOUS TYPES OF INSPECTION BODIES standard was created to ensure the reliability of various types of inspection bodies. To date, 51 inspection bodies, mostly in non-food sectors, have been accredited by TÜRKAK in our country. The ISO 17020 standard was prepared to be applied by organizations that certify products, inspect product processes and batches, conduct technical safety inspections, and perform surveillance activities. Within the standard, criteria are specified to ensure that inspection bodies comply with the principles of independence, impartiality, and integrity.

It has become a requirement for inspection bodies to be accredited according to the ISO 17020 standard in order for the services they provide to be accepted by customers and auditing authorities.

Until now, in the food sector, when Surveillance Service (inspection service) is mentioned, the supervision of independent inspection bodies accredited according to the ISO 17020 standard in import and export processes comes to mind. Because the Food Safety inspections of food products offered for domestic consumption (market) were carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. In other words, the official product controls (verifications) of domestic producers were carried out by official institutions. With the publication of the new Food Law Draft, discussions continue regarding the future form of Food Safety Inspections.

In our country, services conducted to measure the compliance of the organization referred to as “Hygiene inspection” with regulations and its adequacy in meeting hygiene requirements have so far been carried out at the request of Customers or Producers. In this regard, mostly Private Food Control Laboratories have been operating. Among the opinions is that there will be Private Inspection Bodies for food production in accordance with legal regulation requirements to be determined in the future, and that a connection will be established with Official Inspection principles.

On the other hand, when the Standard is examined, uncertainties such as how the contract and work order control system of the Inspection body will be, how the evaluations of Inspection reports will reach official channels, and similar issues will be clarified through Official announcements.

As a result, it has become even more important for organizations conducting hygiene surveillance and food product inspections to be accredited according to the ISO 17020 standard in order to increase their reliability. For this reason, organizations providing inspection and also testing services have started working to become accredited according to the ISO 17020 standard.

Fatma İnceoğlu – December 2010