FST–403

FOOD QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
Quality Management
• The importance of quality has significantly grown in the food
sector over the last decades because of increasing consumers’
expectations, governmental regulations and expanding competition in
the market.
• In response, food companies have increasingly pursued quality
management (QM) practices in recent years.
• ISO 8401 defined QM as
“All activities of the overall management function that determine the
quality policy, objectives and responsibilities, and implement them by
means such as quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and
quality improvement within the quality system”
Implementation
• Implementing a quality management system as much an art as it is a science.
• It takes data, but it also requires the ability to engage people.
• It takes methodological approach, but is also requires creativity.
• Implementation of Quality Management depends on organizational factors such as
 Size of the organization
 Type of suppliers and customers
 Degree of automation
 Type of products
 Quality assurance requirements
 Top management’ commitment.
• The challenges in establishing an appropriate QM system are more intense for the small
scale enterprisers due to a lack of resources, competencies and diseconomies of scale.
Benefits of Implementing QMS
• Achieve organizational goals
• Reduce costly errors and wastage
• Boost customer satisfaction
• Market your business more effectively
• Manage growth more effectively
• Improve documentation availability
• Correct issues to continually improve products and services
• Grow market share in new territories and market sectors
• Create a culture of quality
• Better internal communications
• Consistent products
• Effectively measure performance of individuals and teams
• Improve compliance
Hierarchy of QMS
• Organization is vital when dealing with controlled documents. A
suggested hierarchy for managing QMS documentation is:
1. Quality Manual
2. Policies
3. Procedures
4. Work Instructions
5. Lists
6. Forms
Standard Authorities
• Gaining accreditation of a recognized quality standard typically starts
with the selection of the appropriate ‘scheme/standard’ for the
manufacturing operation. Such standards include:
 Global G.A.P
 IFS (International Featured Standards)
 BRC (British Retail Consortium)
 ISO9001 Food quality management standard (International
Organization for Standardization)
 ISO22000 FSMS-Food Safety Management System
 Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000
Aesthetics
• Aesthetics is the study of taste and beauty, whether in the form of the
comic, tragic or the sublime.
• The word comes from Greek word Aisthetikos, referring to sensory
perception and understanding or sensuous knowledge.
• Aesthetics is where we comment on the appearance.
• As designers, we need to think about the design so as to make the
product look pleasing.
Appearance and Color
• Sight is used to judge appearance and color.
• Appearance = size, shape, surface appearance, presentation e.g. garnish
and serving dish.
• Color = actual color, color change due to cooking, color added by garnish.
• Appearance and color used to judge freshness of food.
• Certain flavors associated with colors e.g. lemon- yellow, strawberry - red,
mint - green, lime - green.
• We expect certain foods to have a certain appearance & color e.g. mold
on Stilton cheese but not on bread.
• Color lost in processing is sometime replaced artificially for the consumer.
Flavor
• Flavor of food is a mixture of
smell, taste and mouth feel.
• Descriptors:  Sharp
 Acidic  Smoky
 Bitter  Sour
 Bland  Spicy
 Creamy  Sweet
 Piquant  Tangy
 Salty  Tasteless
Smell
• Smell (olfactory sense): nasal cavity has receptor cells that detect smell.
• Intensifies flavor.
• Can be used to determine if food is fresh, rancid or poisonous.
• Descriptive words:
 Aromatic
 Burnt
 Fresh
 Fruity
 Pungent
 Roasted
 Smoky
 Sour
 Spicy
 Strong
Taste
• Detected by receptors called taste buds on the tongue.
• Substances cannot be tasted until dissolved.
• Saliva dissolves and controls temperature of food.
• Processing causes flavor loss which is replaced artificially e.g.
monosodium glutamate.
• Recent molecular and functional data have revealed that, contrary to
popular belief, there is no tongue 'map': responsiveness to the five
basic modalities — bitter, sour, sweet & salty — is present in all areas
of the tongue.
MOUTH FEEL
• Nerves in the skin of the mouth are stimulated by thermal or chemical
reactions e.g. coldness of ice cream or burning of chilli.
• Mouth feel helps us detect the texture of food.
TEXTURE
• Refers to consistency and rough or smoothness of the food.
• It is detected by mouth feel and sight.
• Variety of textures is important in a meal.
• Very important in bland foods e.g. Lettuce.
• Mouth feel of processed foods can be improved using additives e.g.
humectants – moistness.
• Descriptors: brittle, chewy, coarse, crunchy, dry, fibrous, fizzy, flaky, grainy,
greasy, lumpy, moist, mushy, powdery, smooth, soft, spongy, sticky.
SENSORY ANALYSIS
• Sensory analysis is a science used to measure, analyze and interpret
reactions to food characteristics perceived by the senses of sight,
smell, touch, hearing and taste.
• The 5 senses are involved in sensory analysis:
 Appearance
 Aroma
 Texture
 Flavor
 Aftertaste
Types of Sensory Analysis Tests
• 3 types of test used. Each test has a different aim.

Test Type Aim

Preference test Which product is preferred or is a product acceptable

Difference test Can a difference be detected

Descriptive test Rank organoleptic properties of a product

PREFERNCE TEST
Paired Preference Test
• Two samples presented and testers indicate which they prefer.

Hedonic Ranking Test

• One or more samples are ranked on a verbal scale (5, 7 or 9 point
scale) like a lot, like a little, neither like or dislike, dislike a little, dislike
a lot.
DIFFERENCE TESTS
• Simple Paired Test
Two samples are presented. Tester indicates whether they are the same
or different.
• Paired Comparison Test
Paired samples are presented. Testers state the difference between the
samples based on one characteristic per pair e.g. which of the pair is
sweetest, which of the next pair is saltiest etc. Could be used to detect
differences between commercial and home-made products.
• Triangle Test
3 samples presented, 2 of the 3 are identical. Tester has to identify
which one is different. Could be used to compare brands, or to see if
slight changes made to products can be detected
DESCRIPTIVE TESTS
• Ranking Tests
Used to sort a choice of foods 2-12 samples in order. Food could be
ranked (i) by preference or (ii) according to a particular characteristic,
e.g. sweetness, color etc.

• Rating tests
Used to find out (i) how much a person likes or dislikes a food or (ii) to
compare 2 or more foods for different aspects of quality using a 5,7 or
9 point scale.
Microbial Quality of Food

• Food contaminated by microorganisms (bacteria and yeasts), viruses, and

protozoa can cause severe disease in humans.
• There are two categories of foodborne diseases.
 First, food poisoning is caused by the presence of microbial toxins in food
products, e.g. by Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens (both produce
enterotoxins which elicit enteric disease such as diarrhea), and Clostridium
botulinum(botulism is the most severe type of food poisoning).
 Second, the growth of microorganisms in the body after eating contaminated
food, e.g. by Salmonella spp. (salmonellosis) and Campylobacter jejuni (high
fever, abdominal cramps). Many human pathogens are transmitted by fecal
contaminated water, the most important being Salmonella typhi (typhoid
fever) and Vibrio cholerae (cholera).
Microbial Quality of Food

• Microbiological Indicators in Food

 Aerobic colony count (ACC)
 Hygiene indicator organisms – E. coli and Enterobacteriaceae
 Specific foodborne pathogens – ten specific bacterial pathogens.
Classification of Microbial Quality of
Food
• Satisfactory: Test results indicating good microbiological quality.
• Borderline: The results are not unsatisfactory but are also not
satisfactory, are on the upper limit of acceptability and which indicate
the potential for development of public health problems.
• Unsatisfactory: Test results which indicate investigating reasons for
high count may be considered. For hygiene indicator organisms, test
results that require remedial action. For pathogens, test results at
levels which indicate a product that is potentially injurious to health
and/or unfit for human consumption and require immediate remedial
action.
Controlling the Microbial Growth
• Training
• Operations and Facilities
• Equipment
• Cleaning and Disinfection
1. Training
• Micro-organisms as the main cause of food spoilage and foodborne illness and the
characteristics of the common types of food poisoning.
• How to prevent food poisoning through the control of microbial growth, survival or
contamination.
• Standards of personal hygiene required of food handlers. These are principally to avoid
contamination of food with bacteria the food handler may harbor as part of the body’s flora,
e.g. Staph, aureus, Salmonella or that they may bring in with them from the outside world,
e.g. Listeria, B. cereus.
• Principles of the handling and storage of foods such as the correct use of refrigerators and
freezers, the importance of temperature monitoring, the need for stock rotation and the
avoidance of cross-contamination.
• Correct cleaning procedures and the importance of the ‘clean-as-you-go’ philosophy.
• Knowledge of the common pests found in food premises and methods for their exclusion and
control.
• An introduction to the requirements of current food legislation.
2. Operations and Facilities
• It is important that the building should be well lit, well ventilated and
of sufficient size to maintain the necessary separation between
processes that could give rise to cross-contamination.
• Toilets should not open directly on to food-processing areas and must
be provided with hand-washing facilities supplied with hot water,
soap and hand-drying facilities.
• High- and low-risk areas of a production process should be physically
separated, should use different sets of equipment and utensils, and
workers should be prevented from passing from one area to the other
without changing their protective clothing and washing their hands.
3. Equipment
• The main objectives of the design of hygienic food-processing equipment are to
produce equipment that performs a prescribed task efficiently and economically
while protecting the food under process from contamination.
• Following are the basic principles of hygienic design:
 All surfaces in contact with food should be inert to the food.
 All surfaces in contact with the food should be microbiologically cleanable,
smooth and non-porous.
 All surfaces in contact with food must be visible for inspection
 All surfaces in contact with food must be readily accessible for manual
cleaning.
 Where appropriate, equipment should be fitted with devices which monitor
and record its performance by measuring factors such as temperature/time,
flow, pH, weight.
4. Cleaning and Disinfection
• Microbiological cleaning, also called sanitizing or disinfection, to
reduce to acceptable levels the numbers of adhering micro-organisms
which survive physical cleaning.
• Quaternary ammonium compounds (QUATs) which have a positive
charge in solution and are used mainly for their bacteriostatic and
bactericidal activity rather than their cleaning properties.
• It is desirable that equipment is not left wet after cleaning because
moisture lead to the growth of microbes. So, this is best achieved by
provision of sufficient drainage points and natural air drying.