Animal Feed Safety and ISO 22000 implementation in the import/export Market

A feed is a food that is given to domestic animals, especially to livestock and poultry. It is something that has a direct impact on the animal body and health. Moreover, the feed has a role in designing animal and poultry body parts, and hence, the healthier the feed, the stronger will be the animal. The contamination of the feed with any physical, chemical, or biological hazards such as the presence of iron dust, aflatoxins, and microflora, etc., can inversely affect the health and body of animals. These hazards can affect their body functioning may enter into milk or meat portion and can adversely affect human health. Hence, it is necessary to provide animals with safe feed.

Many factors have an impact on feed quality, starting from the quality of raw feed material. The raw feed material can come from plants or meat. Agricultural practices are one of the major factors among them. secondly is the process of preparing feed will also affect on feed quality and safety.

Feed is needed everywhere in the world. Likewise feed also has value as it can be exported to different parts of the world. Feed safety can never be neglected as unsafe feeds can lead to illnesses, wastage of commodities, and it also has an inverse effect on nations’ reputations in the international market. All these situations can lead to economic downfall and can negatively impact customer confidence (Negative feedback).

 Import and Export of Animal feed or Pets food

Different countries export/ import animal feed on a very large scale. The main purpose behind this import/export is the needs of feed in-country and to get better growth of animals majorly for human supply. A 15.5 billion US dollar feed trade was noted in the year 2019. The increase in cross-border trade also increases the chances of spreading contaminants.

In 2011, reported contamination of imported fenugreek seed with E. Coli resulted in 4000 seriously ill patients and 50 deaths. In 2008, melamine contamination in milk resulted in 300,000 illnesses, 6 deaths, and almost 115 types of contaminated products. That’s why every country has developed legal laws and regulations with the mission to protect consumers from hazards, whether that food or feed is produced domestically or imported from other countries.

In order to assure safe feeds for animals and trade facilitation, every country has an inspection program, based on risk assessment. Some countries only rely on inspecting high risks and others have categorization based on high, medium, and low risks. Some inspections are imposed on the time when there is an outbreak from imported food/ feed.

There are some key issues which every country wants to be resolved for better trade. As per the findings of the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN), safety issues are generally Pesticide residues, mycotoxins, dioxin, heavy metals, and illness-causing pathogens. The issues addressed are much important and the steps to tackle these issues for smooth trade and to build confidence are needed to establish. The most appropriate thing regarding control measures is the identification of these hazards throughout the feed chain to prevent them from entering into feed products or at least making it possible to decrease their level to an acceptable limit.

Another consideration for trade countries is transparency and communication by providing correct information to others regarding safety and quality requirements to strengthen the food/feed control system to increase domestic production and exports. One important thing is to do research activities at various stages of the supply chain and processing.

To implement all these, it is necessary to have some policies, objectives, and standard procedures to follow. Another important thing is the implementation of the system, monitoring the system, and making changes on the need to have a safe and quality feed and its products. For this purpose, it is necessary to identify the issues regarding compliance, infrastructure, capacity (storage, IT), getting certifications, and labeling issues.

After the identification of issues, the next step is a discussion on strategies to overcome these issues. Strategies are meant to prevent issues, have transparency in communication, strengthen the food control system, control the possible hazards in the supply chain, and plan research work to make possible improvements. The next thing in the safety system is the guidance regarding reviewing the legislation to make it clear, risk-based, and enforceable. Guidance to use manpower for improvements and guidance regarding traceability and certification.

For this purpose, two types of standards are followed from which one is regulatory and the other is voluntary. Regulatory standards are the standards that are considered mandatory. These standards contain end product descriptions and their testing results from an accredited lab. The tests in the case of animal feed are testing of heavy metals lead, pesticide and veterinary residues, additives level, packaging, and labeling requirements.

On the other hand, voluntary standards are not mandatory ones. One of the major problems of not meeting the criteria is the mixing up of standards. It became difficult to follow everyone’s standards. To create a homogenous environment for trade, an organization was laid down naming International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This organization works on requirements for product quality, product safety, and environmental safety etc.

ISO 22000 in Feed Safety

ISO 22000 (Food Safety Management System) is the standard designed especially for food and feed safety. This standard contains all the requirements, required for the safety of feed/food products from raw to end consumer. To ensure the safety of food/ feed commodities, it is necessary to have a complete framework of assessing an issue, creating plan work for the control of that issue, explaining objectives, and improving the system to achieve those objectives. ISO 22000 provides all the guidelines regarding the complete framework.

Food safety management system (ISO 22000) starts by explaining the scope of a firm to make improvements in the system regarding safety,  Section 5 of the ISO 22000 is regarding the leadership and commitment that plays a key role in the success of any industry. It defines the procedure to create a policy, and one of the important things is assigning responsibilities and authority to every personnel.

Section 6, will need to look into planning to address risks and to control them, set up food safety objectives and planning how to achieve these objectives and plan of change in the system with time. Section 7 is about the support that is required for the implementation of the system i.e., use of manpower for safety and higher production ratio.

Its section 8 describes the operational planning that covers pre-requisite programs (infrastructure, personal hygiene, equipment suitability and sustainability, purchase, receiving, loading and dispatch procedures), Traceability (from consumer to raw material), emergency preparedness regarding food safety, and one of the important things is HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control point).

Section 9 describes the performance evaluation (monitoring of the system, monitoring of records, analysis, and evaluation) by conducting internal audits and one of the important things is to discuss non-conformances and possible controls in a management review meeting to make the system more effective against any kind of hazard and to ensure the safety of the product.

Section 10 discusses system improvements. Having the food safety management system and its implementation can assure the production of safe feeds. Assurance and availability of safe and hazardous free feed can play a crucial role in gaining confidence and reputation in the trading world, as well as at the domestic level.