Good Manufacturing Practices in the Food Industry

Good manufacturing practices ensures that all manufactured products match quality standards.  Some standards, including ISO 22000, are set by industry bodies, such as Food Standards Agency (FSA).  However, many quality standards are enforced by government bodies and international organisations, such as  Codex Alimentarius Commission. These products include, but aren’t limited to food & beverage, electronics, medical devices and beauty products. 

By helping to reduce the risk of cross-contamination, mislabelling of products and adulteration that can be detrimental, GMPs can help businesses reduce waste, costs and avoid product recalls by ensuring their products are consistent with quality standards. 

Maintaining good manufacturing practices in the food industry isn’t just important, it’s vital - it’s vital for public safety. GMP gives consumers the confidence that what they are consuming isn’t just of high quality but also safe. 

It’s also vital that stockists and supermarkets are also in line with good manufacturing practices to ensure that all products are safe, of high quality and consistent with other products. However, if good manufacturing practices aren’t met this can lead to severe consequences including product regulatory action, product recalls and damage to the reputation to the brand. These consequences can also lead to an increase in costs and wastage. 

There are many different good manufacturing practices in the food industry. These are just some of the few standard practices that businesses should include to ensure safe food manufacturing.

Quality Management

Quality management is critical to ensure all food manufactured meets the food quality standards , such as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP),  to ensure it’s safe to consume. This involves testing ingredients & inspecting the processes and finished products. 

Pest Management

Pest management ensures that all manufactured food products do not come into contact with animals. This involves preventing any animals (such as bugs, birds, and rodents) into the area which the food is produced. Solutions such as food storage  must be put into place to avoid any contamination and infestation. It’s vital that any food preparation surfaces do not come into any contact with animals.

Sanitation & Hygiene

To prevent contamination, all food preparation areas must be sanitised and are hygienic for use. This requires for protocols and routines to be in place such as regular cleaning of equipment and surfaces. It’s also to ensure that staff are maintaining personal hygiene and ensuring they are required PPE, such as hair nets, gloves and aprons or gowns.

Facility Location

When choosing a location for a food manufacturing facility, it’s  important  to pick somewhere that is pollution and contamination free. This is to lower any risks when manufacturing food. 

Product Labelling 

It’s crucial for food labelling to be readable and accurate. In the UK, the government standards dictate that all food labels should contain: 

• Product name
• Net weight 
• Identification
• Address of the manufacturer/distributor 
• Ingredients
• Allergens 

Validation and Verification

All ingredients and product used should be traceable, verified and validated in line with safety procedures. This involves testing raw materials, monitoring the production process, inspecting final products, and keeping record of safety activities. 

Document and Record-Keeping

It’s necessary that all food safety procedures are documented . The documentation required is set by food safety standards and regulations . This is to demonstrate that businesses are compliant with all required standards. The following should be documented regularly:

• Raw materials
• Production process
• Inspections
• Food safety activities

Inspection and Auditing 

All aspects of food manufacturing are required to be inspected. By inspecting facilities and equipment, this ensures that all facilities are in line with food safety regulations. In addition to inspections, audits are also conducted through a third-party. 

ISO 22000 food safety management systems can help businesses establish, implement, and maintain their GMP to ensure that what is being produced is of the highest quality and safe for their consumers. 

Based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, ISO 22000 provides framework for businesses to identify, assess and control food safety hazards. With this framework in place, businesses can ensure that they are consistently meeting the safety standards. 

Integrating ISO 22000 with GMP is simple. This ensures businesses can meet both the safety standards and GMP to ensure that they are producing safe products. 

Within GMP, there are ten principles that allows a company to stay on top of their product manufacturing, reducing the risk of product contamination, keeping on top of hygiene, and staying in line with regulatory standards. These ten principles are: 

Step-By-Step Instructions 

The first step of good manufacturing practices is creating simple step-by-step guides and standard operating procedures (SOPs). These will allow a company to keep consistent in their standards and performance. 

Observations of Procedures 

It’s vital that once your SOPs have been written that your staff follows these down to the letter. By regularly observing, this ensures that your procedures are being followed and allows you to make any modifications to make your practices run smoothly. 

Document Everything 

Keeping detailed documentation is critical to ensure that you are adhering to regulatory compliance, keeping on top of issues and audits. 

Verify the Specifications and SOPs

Regularly verify your specification, documentation, and procedures to ensure that your standard operating procedures are working to consistently produce high quality products. 

The Quality and Safety of Equipment and Facilities 

Ensuring the quality and safety of equipment and facilities is vital for maintaining consistency and safety in produce. There are tasks that are required to be done daily, weekly, and monthly to ensure that the facility and equipment are safe and of the highest quality. These include: 

• Daily – Check for visible wear and tear of the facility and equipment. These include checking for leaks and blockages & ensuring that all safety guards and fire alarms are working correctly.
• Weekly – In-depth checks of mechanical parts of equipment. 
• Monthly – More detailed inspections of the facility, the equipment and staff performance ensuring it’s working correctly to create safe and high quality products. 

Maintain Equipment and Facilities 

Consistently maintaining the equipment and facilities and keeping record of maintenance that has been done is necessary for addressing issues around safety and quality control. 

Job Competence 

Each of the team is required to demonstrate job competency according to good manufacturing practices. However, this may be demonstrated differently depending on the individual. To help avoid confusion, outline each member of staff’s role and requirements. Staff should also been trained when starting their new role with regular training throughout to ensure they are meeting the good manufacturing practices. 

Ensure a Clean Environment

Ensuring a clean environment is critical when reducing the risk of contamination. Ensure a hygiene and sanitation routine, conducted daily,  is in place that is followed by every member of staff. This routine should include proper hand washing, wear the correct PPE and regularly cleaning down surfaces and equipment. 

Produce Quality Products 

Every six month, check each step of the manufacturing process, from production and cooking to packaging and labelling. This is essential  for maintaining the highest quality of the product. Make sure that each step is clearly defined to ensure that each and every product is shelf ready. 

Audits 

Annual audits guarantee that your procedures are in line with GMP and regulatory compliance. Having an external perspective can help to streamline and improve processes by finding any issues or opportunities. 

There are a few different ways to implement good manufacturing practices in the food and beverage industry, all which lead to the same outcome. This is just one example of steps a company could take to implement GMP, ensuring all high safety and quality standards are met. 

1. All stakeholders should have a clear understanding of GMP and are committed to the principles. 
2. Review all the current procedures to identify gaps and opportunities. 
3. Create comprehensive SOPs and put systems in place. Regularly observe staff to ensure that they are following the guidelines. 
4. To reduce any risks to measures in place, such as helping to manage and eliminate food safety risks. 
5. Regularly review and document processes and keep comprehensive documentation of all activities.
6. Conduct both internal and external audits regularly. 
7. Hire a GMP Consultant to get each member of staff up to speed.

Within the food industry, there’s are a lot of factors that can have a negative impact when implementing good manufacturing practices. From changes in regulation to maintaining documentation, these are a few implementation challenges to be aware of. 

Employee Turnover 

Having a high employee turnover can be a challenge when implementing GMP. If employees leave, it can take a significant amount of time for new employees to learn the companies GMPs. This could cause errors in the safety and quality of food. 

By putting efficient training methods and onboarding in place can help to train new staff quickly. Efficient training methods can include on-the-job training (OJT), shadowing, instructor lead training and microlearning can help to get staff up to speed on practices and processes. 

Change in Regulations 

Food regulations are constantly evolving. This can be difficult to stay on top of. With changing regulations, businesses are responsible for changing their practices to stay compliant.

By subscribing to publications, whether that’s newsletters or through social media, installing compliance software, and attending training and conferences can ensure that businesses are staying up to date with regulations.

Maintaining Documentation 

All documentation and records should accurately reflect the businesses current practices. This is vital to ensure that a business is compliant with GMP. If these documents are not updated regularly, this can cause issues such as violations in audits. 

Financial Investment 

Putting good manufacturing practices in the food industry in place requires a large amount of capital investment. Investment is required for facilities, equipment, personnel, training, etc. This could be a big issue for small businesses.

Automation can play a massive role in the food industry. When coupled up with GMP, this can help to make a system run smoother. Automation can help with:

• Increase productivity and efficiency by reducing manual labour and improving the speed of production and output 
• Reduce the number of errors and improve overall quality of products 
• Improve safety and hygiene using automated equipment
• Collect and analyse data to help identify areas of improvement 
• Optimise the use of resources, reduce the amount of waste, and improve energy efficiency 

Real-Time Monitoring & Inspection

Monitoring the manufacturing of products can be automated. Sensors can detect defects in products such as shape, size, weight and colour. This allows changes to be made quickly. By automating monitoring and inspections can ensure a business is meeting food safety and quality requirements and adhering to guidelines, such as HACCP. 

Automated Labelling

Make labelling each product easier with automated labelling. This uses machines that can print and label individual food products, reducing the possibility of errors. By automating the labelling process, businesses can improve traceability through smart labelling. Smart labelling uses NFC tags or QR codes containing ingredients, allergens and other key information that consumers can scan. 

Electronic Batch Records

Automated electronic batch records can replace paper records. This allows for manufacturing processes to be streamlined and enhances data integrity. Throughout the manufacturing process, electronic batch records can capture and store real-time data ensuring all practices are compliant, improves ingredient traceability and reduces errors.  

Integrating AI (artificial intelligence) with GMP could streamline a process even more , by automating processes, predicting when stock will run out and helping businesses to stay compliant. Here’s what you need to know.

Predictive Maintenance

If a piece of equipment breaks, this can take a significant amount of time to fix it. Using sensor data and performance records, AI can help to predict when equipment could break and when it would need maintenance.

Optimising the Supply Chain 

Having the right ingredients on hand is paramount in food manufacturing. AI can help optimise the supply chain by using algorithms. With the use of inventory management, demand forecasting and logistics, AI can order the right ingredients, in the write quantities to ensure production doesn’t stop. 

Compliance 

Being compliant with GMP is vital. AI can help to monitor documents and processes to allow a business to run smoothly and saving multiple man hours to allow staff to work on more pressing tasks , such as admin and product manufacturing.

Learn how Unleashed’s Food Manufacturing Software can be used to increase productivity and optimise your manufacturing practices.