Regulations, occupational safety and environmental management
Scope
This domain tests the legal and operational framework around food production: food law, traceability, hygiene, occupational safety and environmental management.
Core rules
- Food business operators must comply with general food law, hygiene regulations and HACCP-based procedures; traceability requires one step back and one step forward.
- Recalls need lot identification, contact lists and mock-recall testing.
- OHS: risk assessment for slips, burns, knives, manual handling, chemicals and machinery; PPE and COSHH-type controls.
- Environmental management: waste hierarchy (prevent, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose), energy and water efficiency, refrigerant leakage and packaging reduction.
- Regulations vary by market; a label or limit valid in the EU may not be valid elsewhere.
Worked example
A supplier reports a lot of soft cheese positive for Listeria monocytogenes. Within the traceability window, identify all products made with that lot, customers supplied and quantities. Quarantine remaining stock, notify authorities if required, and recall from customers. Record supplier lot, internal lot, dispatch dates and verification that affected product is removed.
Traps
- Assuming traceability means full supply-chain mapping; the legal minimum is one step back and forward.
- Treating HACCP as voluntary.
- Copying an EU label for a non-EU market.
- Ignoring refrigerant leakage in carbon reporting.