Food Safety, Hygiene, Sanitation and Quality Assurance
What the exam tests
This domain tests the legal and management side of food safety: the FSS Act 2006, FSSAI licensing, Schedule 4 hygiene, GMP and GHP, HACCP principles, CCPs, ISO 22000, sanitation, pest control, traceability and recall. Expect questions that distinguish a prerequisite programme from a critical control point.
Core rules and concepts
- The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 consolidated food law in India; FSSAI issues licences and sets standards. Schedule 4 covers general hygienic and sanitary practices for food businesses.
- GMP covers facilities and process controls; GHP covers personal hygiene, water quality, cleaning, pest control and waste. These are prerequisite programmes.
- HACCP has seven principles: hazard analysis, CCP determination, critical limits, monitoring, corrective action, verification and record keeping.
- A CCP is a step where control is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a significant hazard to an acceptable level. A metal detector or pasteuriser can be a CCP; a hand-wash station is a prerequisite.
- Sanitation reduces microorganisms to safe levels; sterilisation destroys all microorganisms. Cleaning must precede disinfection because soil protects microbes.
Worked example
In mango pulp processing, a pasteurisation step has a biological hazard (Salmonella), a measurable control (temperature and holding time), a critical limit of 90-95 degrees Celsius for 1 min, continuous monitoring, a corrective action for отклонение, and records. Applying the CCP decision tree: the hazard is significant, later steps do not remove it, and the step is designed to control it, so pasteurisation is a CCP. Metal detection after filling is a separate physical-hazard CCP.
Traps
Calling every hygiene step a CCP; treating HACCP as finished-product testing; confusing cleaning with disinfection; ignoring verification and records; assuming a licence guarantees safety without in-house controls.