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FACTSHEET ON SINGAPORE STANDARD ON FOOD SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Background 1 Sustaining good standards of hygiene in food establishments helps to ensure safe food for consumers and safeguards Singapore’s reputation as a food paradise with low incidence of food poisoning. 2 The incidence of food poisoning reported in food retail outlets is low. The number of major food poisoning incidents (affecting 10 or more people) remained relatively unchanged at 0.8 per 1,000 outlets licensed by the National Environment Agency (NEA) over the last three years. NEA currently licenses 34,390 retail food establishments (as at December 2012).

3 Food catering are particularly high-risk operations given the large amount of food prepared in advance and storage of the food for a period of time before consumption. With the large volume and varied cooking processes needed, the threat of cross contamination1 is high. This is regardless of whether catering is done for external or in-house functions like weddings or company functions. The handling of uncooked but ready-to-eat food also increases the risk.

4 In 2012, caterers had the highest incidence rate of food poisoning, with 19.3 incidents per 1,000 outlets reported. On average, 43 persons were affected in these incidents which can be up to 22 times higher than the numbers typically seen in food poisoning incidents from other food outlets. Food Safety Management System 5 The Food Safety Management System (FSMS) is a documented programme that identifies and controls food safety hazards at every stage of the food storage, preparation, cooking and delivery process through a holistic system of controls covering the following elements:

• A scientific and systematic approach to identify, prevent and reduce food-borne hazards in the food process chain (HACCP or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system);

1 Cross contamination is defined as the transfer of harmful bacteria to food, from other food, surfaces,

hands or equipment.

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• Basic programmes and practices to establish and maintain a hygienic environment. These might include for example, a daily regime to monitor food handlers’ practices during food preparation, screening of staff to ensure those who are unwell are not handling food, regular pest control regime and cross-contamination prevention procedures.

• Efficient and accurate maintenance of documentation and records to ensure the efficient monitoring of FSMS and allow traceability of hazards to the contamination source. Such documentation include operations checklists covering critical areas such as personal hygiene, state of food preparation and food storage areas, approved supplier list, food delivery records, time and temperature records, training records and health status records of food handlers.

6 To improve the food hygiene standards in the retail food industry, NEA has been working with key industry players and SPRING Singapore to develop a Singapore Standard: Guidelines on Food Safety Management for Food Service Establishment. The guidelines provide help for the retail food industry to draw up and implement an FSMS. The guidelines are expected to be ready for use by the third quarter of this year.