The worldwide food safety certification originally was developed to help food manufacturers with regulations of the animal products, products with long shelf lives, perishable produce, and vitamins and additives that they were supplying to the public. This certification came before a lot of today’s Iso certification requirements and classes were put in use, but all have similar goals of improving processes among factories and warehouses having to do with food.
For instance, ISO 14000, including ISO 14001 certification, is a series of standards surrounding environmental management designed to assist companies in minimizing their impact on the environment. This includes food service businesses. Its point? To reduce a company’s impact on how food is handled and how it impacts the public and the surrounding environment, thereby reducing the chance for bacterial infections like listeriosis, which primarily affects babies, pregnant women, and the elderly.
Through ISO 20000 certification, companies get additional education on improving their information technology functions as they relate to the food they handle. Through obtaining ISO 20000 certification or the certifications within the ISO 20000 certification family, a company could dramatically improve its processes to keep bacteria like E. coli and salmonella away from people. E. coli’s incubation period lasts 10 days after a person is infected, and salmonella, named for Dr. Daniel E. Salmon, has been around for at least a century. These bacterium are here to stay, but through ISO 20000 certification, on top of HACCP training and ISO 9000 certification, they can be all but eliminated.