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[[File:|right|350px]] Title: How can a LIMS assist food and beverage industry compliance with ISO 22000 and ISO/IEC 17025?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date: November 2023

Introduction

Meeting international food safety regulatory challenges

ISO 22000—first published in 2005—was originally designed to be aligned with quality management standards like ISO 9001 and the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) principles, as adopted by the Codex Alimentarius.^[1] And while ISO 9001 wasn't exclusively directed at laboratories, over the years laboratories have adopted that standard along with other non-laboratory businesses. With ISO/IEC 17025 having significant alignment with ISO 9001 (while being specifically designed for analytical and calibration laboratories)^[2] and ISO 22000 having alignment with ISO 9001, it's not surprising there is occasional minor confusion between ISO 22000 and ISO/IEC 17025, as well as their impacts on the food and beverage industry.

ISO 22000:2018 Food safety management systems - Requirements for any organization in the food chain specifies how any food and beverage-related business can develop and implement a food safety management system that addresses interactive communication requirements, system management requirements, prerequisite programs, and HACCP requirements.^[1] On the other hand, ISO/IEC 17025:2017 General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories specifies how an analytical or calibration laboratory—including a food and beverage lab—can take a quality system approach to their operations while demonstrating competency, impartiality, and consistency.^[3] While both share aspects of ISO 9001, the intended audiences are different, and ISO 22000 doesn't address things like the measurement aspects of analyses and the management of proficiency testing records.^[4]^[5] The most likely crossover between the two in a food and beverage business is where a food manufacturer adopts ISO 22000 or its HACCP practices, and an affiliated laboratory accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard conducts testing as part of identifying and monitoring physical, chemical, and biological hazards as part of HACCP.

Though some countries may have legal requirements for food manufacturers to adopt the HACCP principles enshrined in ISO 22000—which encourage the identification and controlling of potential hazards throughout the manufacturing process to better ensure the quality and safety of food and beverages^[1]—other countries may not have such requirements, leaving ISO 9001, 17025, and 22000 adoption voluntary. However, the clientele of a given food manufacturer may demand they be accredited to one or more of these standards, or even audited to the requirements of the likes of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).^[1] However, with food safety regulations growing in number (though differing, sometimes greatly, among countries), and many of those regulations requires conformance to one ore more national and international standards,^[6], food and beverage companies of all types are increasingly finding they need to not only meet the requirements of clientele but also stay ahead of the changing regulatory landscape.