Improvement chemical hazard control in vegetable oil production

The perception is that the presence of Food and Feed Safety Management Systems (FSMS) will eliminate the risk on food and feed safety incidents. In reality they will reduce the chance on food and feed safety incidents (unsafe or unhealthy/unfit). The human impact on food safety output and the complexity of the supply chain and/or system is often underestimated. First, the assumption is when the chemical hazard behavior and the human behavior are known, the reliability of the control measures can be improved and therefore the chance on food / feed safety incidents with chemical hazards can be reduced. This is important as major chemical hazard incidents have an impact on health and on consumer fear. Secondly, by knowing the food behavior and the human behavior a leaner FSMS can be developed.

Therefore, first the actual FSMS in place must be studied. An analysis of the performance of the FSMS will visualize the weaknesses in the system taking into account the Food Behavior and Human Behavior. Luning and co-authors have developed an instrument to diagnose an implemented FSMS. The tool is able to identify points for improvement whereby the focus was on managing the biological hazards. In this project this will be made suitable for assessment of chemical hazard management.

A Chemical Assessment Scheme (CHAS) will developed to asses chemical hazards, which will be used as input for the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). With this analysis it is possible to prioritize control measures. From the hazard with the highest priority, detailed knowledge about the chemical behavior must be collected. With the help of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation the chance on failures in control measures and the effect of improvements can be predicted and optimal solutions can be defined. The tools will support improvement cycles.

Aim
Determine an approach for development of a lean and cost effective Food Safety management system aimed at control of chemical hazards with tools for continuous improvement processes.

Approach
Therefore it is important to have a tool to determine the weaknesses in the system, prioritize based on optimization of impact and chance of failure versus the costs of the control measures (cost reward balance). Develop an approach for optimization of chemical contaminant management. This project takes dioxin control as example for gaining deep knowledge of the chemical hazard behavior during processing, identifying potential risks and improvement opportunities, and performing simulations and implementing improvements.  The overall thesis outline involves

1.    Introduction (problem description - why are chemical hazards
relevant for food safety?)
2.    Diagnose actual FSMS based on FSMS DI adapted for chemical
hazards to be able to determine the weak points
3.    The risks identified with CHAS are prioritized based on FMEA
4.    Understand the chemical behavior of hazards during processing to
be able to improve the effectiveness of the control systems
(4.1)Dioxins
Fingerprints of congener profiles in the different raw vegetable oils
and fats
Dioxin behavior during processing
Physico-chemical behavior during refining (Research - Food
Chemistry)
Human behavior/dynamics during quality control (Food Control)
Simulate the behavior of dioxin during refining and hydrogenation
with Monte Carlo
(4.2) Pesticide behavior during crushing (Research – Food
Chemistry)
5.     Conclusion and discussion