Farm to Fork, ISO Offers Help
The new technical specification ISO/TS 22002-3:2011 was created to help farmers maintain a hygienic environment and do their part to prevent food safety risks.
A working group of the International Organization for Standardization's technical committee ISO/TC 34, food products, has produced a new technical specification to help farms of any size maintain a hygienic environment and do their part to prevent food safety risks. The ISO/TS 22002-3:2011 specification applies to crop farming, living farm animals, and the handling of live animals' products such as milk and eggs, according to ISO.
The document covers operations ranging from sorting and cleaning to packing unprocessed products, feed manufacture on the farm, and transport within a farm.
"The chain from farm to fork may be a long one, even global in scale, involving many different participants," said Dominique Berget, leader of the ISO team that developed the document. "Therefore, it's important to ensure food safety right from the very first link, which is often the farm. ISO/TS 22002-3 provides state-of-art requirements and guidance for getting this right."
It is part of the ISO 22000 series of standards for food safety management and is available from the ISO Store online.