New SANS 10049:2019 Edition 5

The new edition of SANS 10049: 2019 – Food Safety Management: Requirements for Prerequisite Programmes (PRPs), Edition 5 – is out, and brings with it certain changes. What are these changes?

What’s new?

As we saw in the draft, the standard now refers to several other SANS standards, and there are eight new definitions. These include new notes under the definition of ‘audit’, detailing the difference between internal and external audits, as well as new definitions for ‘competent’, ‘documented procedures’, ‘high-risk areas’, and several others.

Section 6.2.2 states that top management must appoint personnel with the responsibility and authority to ensure supervision of all PRP practices, operations and requirements of this standard; and section 6.6 includes a section on outsourced activities that did not appear before.

Section 7.2 contains newly added points and subsections describing requirements for construction and layout requirements and there are changes in subsections detailing the specification of facilities for washing and laundering of protective clothing.

There are also completely new sections:

• Section 7.5, on waste management
• Section 7.7, on medical conditions
• Section 8.3, on final product specifications
• Section 8.10, on food safety hazards
• Section 8.11, on traceability
• Section 9, on requirements for high-risk areas
• Section 10, on verification procedures
• Section 11, on Food defence (TACCP)

The standard is available for purchase at https://store.sabs.co.za/. Should your company require any assistance in understanding the standard, or with the implementation of the requirements in your food safety management system, contact one of our food safety consultants at FACTS.