Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 03 | JULY 2015
Why ISO 22000 should be a standard for F&B
manufacturing suppliers
Tony Beeckmans, Atlas Copco Airpower n.v.
Over the last years, ISO 22000 has
become one of the most important
quality standards in the food and
beverage (F&B) industry. Achieving
and maintaining ISO 22000 is key for
F&B production plants worldwide.
So what is next? Certification for
F&B suppliers appears to be the logical next step. Atlas Copco recently
became the first equipment supplier
to receive ISO 22000 certification
for the production of the oil-free
Z compressors, blowers, dryers and
filters in our Antwerp production
facility. Now that it has been established that certification offers
our F&B customers transparency,
security and peace of mind, we
believe that ISO 22000 will quickly
become a standard requirement for
compressor and other manufacturing suppliers.
Guaranteeing food safety while minimizing waste is a fundamental
objective in the F&B industry.
Standards and regulations provide
organizations with the structure,
procedures and processes to maintain and improve food safety while ensuring traceability for maximum transparency in case of an
incident. Introduced in 2005 as an industry-specific offshoot of ISO 9001,
ISO 22000 has quickly emerged as
one of the most important global
F&B quality standards.
Why did Atlas Copco apply for an
F&B certification?
Atlas Copco recently became the
first compressor manufacturer to be
awarded ISO 22000 certification for
our Oil-free Air Division production
facility in Antwerp, Belgium. This
might seem an unusual approach
for a compressor manufacturer.
Why apply for an industry standard
that technically doesn’t apply to us?
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Simply put, Atlas Copco believes that
as ISO 22000 certification is key for
our F&B customers, it should be key
for us as well.
Never before had a compressor
manufacturer inquired about ISO
22000 certification. This required an investment from both Atlas
Copco and Lloyd’s Register Quality
Assurance, our auditing firm, to establish a new type of procedure within the certification process.
The resulting intensive workshops
and comprehensively executed audits demonstrated that Atlas Copco’s
oil-free facility in Antwerp meets all
the ISO 22000 requirements. This
means that the site is now certified
to have systems in place that consistently provide safe oil-free air
compressors, blowers and air treatment products for the F&B industry.
At the end of this process, our certification offers clear benefits to F&B
companies:
• Working with a certified supplier
gives F&B customers peace of mind
that a key piece of manufacturing
equipment was designed and assembled in a controlled, clean and safe
environment.
• Increased transparency as Atlas
Copco has a documented Food
Safety Management System in place.
• Contribution to customers’ ISO
22000 certification process. For
example, Atlas Copco’s ISO 22000
experts can be consulted and used
in our customers’ ISO 22000 process.
• A revision of the ISO 22000 standard is currently underway with the
update expected to be published in
2017. As an ISO 22000 expert, Atlas
Copco can assist F&B customers as
they go through the updated process.
Because of these clear benefits, we
expect F&B companies to start introducing supplier ISO 22000 certification as a key requirement in RFPs
and to make them part of their ISO
22000 prerequisite programs (PRPs).
Compressed air & food safety
In F&B production, compressed air
is used for countless applications.
Sorting and ejecting, mixing, aerating
substances, and inflating or stuffing
products are just a few examples.
First and foremost, compressed air
in an F&B production environment
must be absolutely clean. Any chance of air-based contamination of the
end product must be eliminated.
This often means the entire air net
must meet the highest air quality
standards, as safety and efficiency
concerns increasingly drive F&B
companies to install one common
compressed air net. Only oil-free
compressors can guarantee absolute
air purity. Atlas Copco was the first to
produce Class 0 clean air as certified
by TÜV Rheinland. This standard was
created after analysis showed that
our oil-free compressors can produce air that is completely free of
oil aerosols and vapors. It is a much
more reliable and cleaner standard
than filtered air from an oil-injected
compressor can ever offer.
After the introduction of Class 0 air,
we set out to find the next innovation
that could make a meaningful difference to our F&B customers. ISO
22000 certification proved to be that
next step.
In the end, ISO 22000 certification is
an is