Evamaria Melcher
University of Bonn
Germany
Title: Food safety and quality audits – Are audit findings predictable?
Biography
Biography: Evamaria Melcher
Abstract
In today’s certification world food safety and quality audits play an important role to assure reliable products of high quality along the entire value chain. This study focusses on food safety and quality related findings which have been detected during announced and unannounced audits. The most common findings during food audits shall be identified through the analysis of selected audit reports of IFS Food audits in 2014 and 2015. The data sets were provided by the IFS Management GmbH, a private sector standard owner. The IFS Food is internationally accepted and one of the largest food safety and quality standards worldwide. During data analysis, special categories of findings have been defined to differentiate between the types of deficiencies. Taking into account these categories, their gravity and their occurrence plus their possible avoidance during the audit and during the normal production operations, it shall be examined if there is a certain dependency in terms of company scopes. Furthermore, the empirical data, collected through online surveys of auditors and audited companies, shall support the results from the analysis of the IFS database. First results indicate that the most common findings during food audits can be allocated in one of the following four categories: Risk of contamination, general hygiene aspects, structural conditions and pest control. In addition, initial investigation revealed that companies with certain product scopes tend to have more serious deficiencies regarding food safety and quality aspects. This study offers relevant future-focused recommendations for both food companies and auditors.