The food industry's failure in planning and designing of and in implementing a Food Safety Management System and its foundation elements leads, in most instances, to compromised food safety and subsequent foodborne illness outbreaks. This phenomenon was noticed, worldwide, for all food processors, but with a much higher incidence in the medium- and small-sized food processing plants. Our study focuses on the importance of Food Safety Management System (FSMS), Critical Control Points Hazard Analysis (HACCP) and the Prerequisite Programs (PRPs) as the foundation of HACCP, in preventing foodborne outbreaks. For emphasis, we make use of the example of organizational food safety culture failures and the lack of managerial engagement which resulted in a multi-state listeriosis outbreak in USA. Moreover, we correlate this with microbiological criteria. Implementation of food safety management systems (ISO 22000:2018) along with incorporation of management tools such as HAZOP, FMEA, Ishikawa and Pareto have proved to be proactive in the maintenance of a positive food safety culture and prevention of cross-contamination and fraud.
Keywords: FMEA; Food Safety Management System (FSMS); Good Hygiene Practices (GHPs); Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs); HACCP; HAZOP; Ishikawa; Listeria monocytogenes; Prerequisite Programs (PRPs); Sanitation Standard Operations Procedures (SSOPs); environmental hygiene; food hygiene; food safety; food safety culture; food safety plan; foodborne illness outbreak; microbiological criteria; systems thinking.