Studies Regarding the Implementation and Certification of Food Safety Management System in the Romanian Companies

HACCP is the abbreviation for the english expression “ Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points ”. To obtain high – quality products, capable of meeting the consumer’s demands and complying with the food safety standards, certain risk-prevention and control methods should be applied (Bonsi R.,2001). In the fruits products processing company, the application of a HACCP system allows the identification of the key-elements of the technological process. The system analyses the hazard related to the product and the process, indicating the critical control points to the hygienic quality of the product.. Starting with the fact that some of these products are ready to eat (eg.fresh fruits or Macedonia salad), there are major concerns regarding the level of pesticides and other chemical contaminants, the maintenance of hygiene during harvesting, handling, processing, storage, and commercialisation (Aversano, F 2006). In order to prevent or reduce the above-mentioned hazards, the big specialised companies and small producers must apply HACCP prevention methods, not methods based on the final product control (which may affect consumer’s health and may lead to important economic loss). In the last years, in Romania, some companies started to certify the food safety management system, according the ISO 22000, IFS or BRC standards,whose common point is the HACCP study, which is included in all food safety standards. Therefore, this paper contains a HACCP study, characteristic for “ready to eat” vegetable products and expl