Managing Control Measures According to the ISO 22000:2018 Requirements: the COMECAT Method

Politis, F.D. Krokos, I. Papadakis and G. Chatzistelios
School of Science and Technology, Hellenic Open University Parodos Aristotelous 18, GR26 335, Patra, Greece
DOI – http://doi.org/10.37502/IJSMR.2021.5101

Abstract

Since its introduction in 2005, ISO 22000 has required a systematic approach for the selection and categorization of control measures. Given that the ISO 22000 standard did not describe a distinct method to categorize these measures and the lack of relevant methodologies in the literature, the COMECAT method was introduced in 2017 with the aim to provide clear guidance for their selection and categorization. The new version of the ISO 22000 standard, introduced in 2018, gives more insights about the categorization of control measures and, therefore, the purpose of this paper is to verify whether the COMECAT method fully conforms to the new version’s requirements. The paper analyses one by one the requirements of the new ISO 22000 standard regarding the categorization of control measures and describes how the COMECAT method conforms to these requirements. The COMECAT method fully conforms to the requirements of the new version of the ISO 22000 standard and thus can be utilized by food business operators as a valuable tool for categorizing the selected identified control measure(s).

Keywords: Control measures, Categorization, Food Safety Management Systems, ISO 22000, and HACCP.

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