Key food safety definitions
- Safe food: food which is free from contaminants and will not cause illness harm or injury. Everyone who works with food has a responsibility to protect customers by protecting food from anything that could cause harm.
- Food safety: protecting the health and well-being of customers by keeping food safe from anything that could cause them harm.
- Food hygiene: the measures and conditions necessary to control hazards and ensure food is fit for human consumption.
- Contamination: the presence in food of a harmful or objectionable substance or object (essentially, something that shouldn’t be there!)
- Foodborne illness/ food poisoning: types of illness caused by eating contaminated food.
- Hazard: anything that could cause harm to customers.
- Risk: the likelihood that a hazard will cause harm.
- HACCP: it stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. It’s a formal system that helps food businesses protect food safety. Food safety management procedures should be based on HACCP principles. We will learn about HACCP and food safety management systems later on in the course.