Qualitative Anforderungen für die Entwicklung des Nationalen Kontrollplans. Bewertung und Optimierung des Konzeptes für Prozesskontrollen.

• Forschungsstelle: BLV
• Projektnummer: 1.10.01
• Projekttitel Englisch: Qualitative requirements for the development of the national control plan. Assessment and optimization of the process control concept.

Schlüsselwörter (Deutsch)

Nationaler Kontrollplan, Lebensmittelsicherheit, Tierschutz, Tiergesundheit, Risikoabschätzung, Sensitivitätsanalyse, Modellierung.

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

National control plan – food safety – animal health – animal welfare – risk assessment – sensitivity analysis – modelling

Kurzbeschreibung (Deutsch)

Basierend auf der Analyse der verschiedenen nationalen und internationalen risikobasierten Ansätze für die Kontrollen entlang der Lebensmittelkette wurde ein optimierter Nationaler Kontrollplan für die Schweiz entwickelt. Das Bundesamt für Veterinärwesen (BVET), das Bundesamt für Gesundheit (BAG) und das Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft (BLW) sind verantwortlich für die Entwicklung und Verbesserung dieses Plans. Er enthält Leitlinien für die Koordinierung der Aktivitäten der verschiedenen nationalen und lokalen Behörden. Er sollte die folgenden Ziele erfüllen: 1) Schutz der Verbraucher gegen gesundheitliche Risiken und Täuschung nach den Schweizerischen Rechtsvorschriften für Lebens-und Futtermittel, 2) Durchsetzung des Tierschutzes und 3) Schutz der Gesundheit von Tieren.
Jede Betriebskategorie der Lebensmittelkette vom Erzeuger bis zum Verbraucher wird berücksichtigt (z. B. Erzeuger, Sekundär-Hersteller, Einzelhandel). Der Plan legt die Prozesskontrollfrequenzen der verschiedenen Betriebskategorien auf der Grundlage einer Risikobewertung fest. Diese semi-quantitative Bewertung wird benutzt, um die verschiedenen Betriebskategorien je nach ihren unterschiedlichen Risiken für die Lebensmittelsicherheit, Tiergesundheit und den Tierschutz zu klassieren. Diese Bewertung wurde mithilfe von Expertenmeinungen entwickelt.

Das Ziel des vorgeschlagenen Projekts ist die Effizienz des Nationalen Plans (2010-14), sowie die Werkzeuge für die Optimierung der Prozesskontrolle zu bewerten. Dieses Projekt konzentriert sich auf Risiken im Zusammenhang mit der Milcherzeugung. Die folgenden Fragen sollten beantwortet werden:

• Wie zuverlässig ist die Risikobewertung für die Definition von Risikokategorien für die verschiedenen Betriebskategorien? 
• Wie kann man die Risikokategorien in Kontrollefrequenzen übersetzen? 
• Welche dynamischen Kriterien sollte die Risikobewertung heranziehen und welchen Einfluss auf die Kontrollen sollte sie haben? 
• Welche Hilfsmittel sollten für das Risikomanagement entwickelt werden, um zu wählen was kontrolliert werden sollte und wo? 
• Wie effizient ist das Programm im Vergleich zu anderen nationalen risikobasierten Programmen?

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

Based on the analysis of various national and international risk-based approaches for controls along the food chain, an optimized national control plan was designed for Switzerland. The Federal Veterinary Office (FVO), the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) are responsible for developing and improving this plan. It provides guidelines to coordinate the control activities of several national and local authorities. It aims to fulfill the following objectives: 1) protection of consumers against sanitary risks and deception according to the Swiss legislation for food and feed products; 2) enforcement of animal welfare and 3) protection of animal health.
Every element (operation category) of the food chain from producers to consumers is taken into account (e.g. primary producers, secondary producers, retail stores). The plan defines the control frequency of the different operation categories based on a risk assessment. This assessment is a comprehensive tool used to rank the different operation categories according to the different risks they present for food safety, animal health and welfare. The control frequency is determined based on the risk assessment regarding two types of criteria: (1) static criteria that refer to the risk of the operation category on each relevant hazard; (2) dynamic criteria that are based on the results of previous controls, and refer to each individual operation’s risk for the hazard. The working group involved in the national control plan also defines guidelines in order to conduct the national monitoring program. The risk assessment developed is a semi-quantitative assessment with risk scores that were defined using expert opinion. Such a comprehensive risk-based control program needs to include many simplifications for practical reason.

The objective of the proposed project is to assess the efficiency of the national control plan (2010-14), and to provide tools for optimizing the process control. This project will focus on risks associated with dairy production. In detail the following question will be addressed in order to better allocate resources in ensuring protection of consumer health, animal health and welfare according to national and international legislations:

• How reliable is the risk assessment used to define risk categories for the different operation categories? How to evaluate the contribution of the different hazard in the attribution to risk categories? 
• How to convert risk categories into control frequencies? 
• What dynamic criteria should be used and how should they influence the inspection frequency? 
• What tool should be defined for the risk management in order to select what should be controlled and where? 
• How efficient is the program in comparison with existing national risk-based programs?

Projektziele (Englisch)

The main objective of this research project is to develop methods to assess the efficiency of the national control plan at the level of process control and to provide guidelines for its optimization.

Due to the broad spectrum of operation categories covered with the national control plan, the project will focus on hazards related to dairy production along the food chain, and this for various reason. From an economical point of view milk and dairy products represent the main product of the Swiss agriculture. In 2007 the milk production accounted for 21% of the agricultural income identified. From 3.3 millions of tons of marketed milk 44% was transformed in cheese for a total of 86% of milk-products. 54’321 tons of cheese were exported during 2007. The export of dairy products accounted for 660 million Swiss francs (Anonymous, 2008). In this context, Switzerland must meet the requirements of EU Directive 92/46/EEC, and the regulation 854/2004.
The dairy industry represents a complex network within the food chain with many different players and many interactions. It is therefore possible to consider the different control domains (food safety, animal health and animal welfare) and all types of hazards (biological, chemical and physical). In addition, a monitoring program for dairy products based on a risk assessment has been in place since 2001 (Health risks associated with consumption of drinking milk and dairy products), which provides information in order to validate or discuss different aspects of the proposed project using real data. Because three federal offices (FVO, FOPH, FOAG) are involved in the controls of the dairy production, this is a good example to demonstrate the advantages of a common risk-based inspection plan where different control points and control frequencies are defined according to objective and well documented criteria. This can greatly facilitate a common and transparent risk communication by the three federal offices. More specifically the project will address the following questions:
1. How reliable is the risk assessment and what is the influence of each hazard on the risk ranking? Quality criteria for non-quantitative risk assessment will be elaborated together with the international project partners (Royal Veterinary College, UK and AGES, Austria), and applied to the risk assessment for the national control plan. Criteria will include (i) evaluation of reliability of available data, expert opinion and combination tables; (ii) identification of input parameters with a strong influence on the outcome of the risk assessment in a sensitivity analysis, and (iii) estimation of consequences of imprecise or biased information on consumer risk in a stochastic simulation model.
2. What dynamic criteria should be used and how should they influence the inspection frequency? When the control frequency has been defined, what should be controlled and where should we perform the control along the food chain?
Dynamic criteria directly influence the control frequency of the operational units, the different criteria retained as well as their combination will be assessed. Developing new approaches to establish a link between the risk assessment and control frequency. For the risk-management tools are needed allowing to better identify where and what to control along the food chain.
3. What is the efficiency of the program? Comparison of the performance (costs and benefits for implementing the program) of the Swiss national control plan with alternative models for risk-based inspection (RIK in Austria; Risk Categorization of Food Businesses in Ireland).

In order to maximize the power of this project, collaborations are planned with other countries that apply similar approaches towards risk-based controls, such as Ireland and Austria. Either parallel projects could be performed simultaneously or the candidate could integrate external data and other risk-based control strategies in the development of the method.

Umsetzung und Anwendungen (Deutsch)

Umsetzung:

- Erarbeitung wichtiger Tools für den Nationalen Kontrollplan

- Priorisierung Risikobasierte Kontrollen entlang der Lebensmittelkette

UMS 2012:
Resultate werden vom VPHI am Swiss Food Science Meeting den Kantonschemikern vorgestellt mit dem Ziel diese zu überzeugen, dass risikobasierte Kontrollen entlang der Lebensmittelkette mit einem einheitlichen Verfahren sinnvoll sind. Publikation ist eingereicht. Status: Kommt an UMS 2013 (mvo)

Publikationen / Ergebnisse (Englisch)

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