Food Defence

Food Defence

“Food defence is the effort to protect food from acts of intentional adulteration or tampering” (FDA)

FDA has a leading role in a number of food defence initiatives to protect food from acts of intentional adulteration or tampering and to assist facilities to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from acts of intentional adulteration of the food supply.

In Europe food business operators have adopted TACCP & VACCP to address food authenticity and malicious contamination concerns with PAS 96 : 2017 being the most widely adopted specification being used. This specification defines the six threats and with economically motivated adulteration EMA (authenticity) and malicious contamination being the two of most prevalence. The motivation behind both is human behaviour, one to fraudulently gain a monitory benefit and the other to cause harm or disruption. As many Irish food business operators are now exporting to both the EU and USA its important that members of the TACCP/VACCP Team are familiar with the ideas and concepts in both PAS 96:2017 and the FDA Guidance document on mitigation strategies to protect food against intentional adulteration.

The BRCGS Food Safety Standard Issue 9 has redefined its approach to the food defence topic with a greater expectation for team members to understand threat assessment and how appropriate controls can be put in place.

Author: Denis Kiely

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