VM 834 Current Issues in Food Safety

Course description: The course is led by a lead instructor, trained by the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance (FSPCA) who has been instructed in how to teach the FDA-recognized standardized curriculum. Instruction provides an overview of the feed industry structure, and an understanding of feed hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls.

The Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-based Preventive Controls for Animal Food regulation (referred to as the Preventive Controls for Animal Food regulation) is intended to ensure safe manufacturing/processing, packing and holding of food products for animal consumption in the United States. The regulation requires that certain activities must be completed by a “preventive controls qualified individual” who has “successfully completed training in the development and application of risk-based preventive controls, or is otherwise qualified through job experience to develop and apply a food safety system”. Successful completion of this course is one way to meet the requirements for a “preventive controls qualified individual.”

The training material was developed by FSPCA and is the standardized curriculum that the US FDA recognizes as adequate for preventive control qualified individual (PCQI) training. Upon successful completion of the course participants will receive a certificate from the Food Safety Preventative Controls Alliance signed by ISFH, IFPTI, and AAFCO.

The course will be self-paced AND students will interact with the course instructors:

• Students will participate in a live online meeting with other students and the instructor to discuss and apply the model food safety plans—this will be a live streaming meeting where students sign up for one of a set number of pre-determined dates ahead of time so there are enough attendees to have interactive discussion.
• Students can communicate with the instructor to pose questions throughout the course.

Topics:

• Overview of the Food Safety Modernization Act requirements for animal food;
• Current GMPs and other prerequisite programs in the feed industry: hygienic personnel practices and training; facility operations, maintenance, and sanitation; equipment design, use, and maintenance; processes and controls; and warehousing and distribution.
• Biological hazards, chemical and physical hazards
• Appropriate steps needed to develop a food safety plan, such as hazard analysis and implementation of preventive controls
• FAO Good Practices for the feed industry
• Case studies from industry

Course Materials: All materials will be made available in the D2L course. There is no textbook requirement - readings will be assigned from regulatory, industry, and research sources.

 

1 Credits