ABSTRACT

For people to mature, grow up and continue their life in a healthy way, one of the most important requirements is food. Currently, increased people consciousness, environment protection, social responsibilities and increased importance for human beings safety with national and international laws are getting increased the demands of international standards for food sector.

HACCP, which is an internationally renowned system work for reliability of food, is the abbreviation of ‘Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point’. HACCP is a risk system which tries to prevent consumer’s health from all of the hazards beforehand by controlling all of the steps of Food from raw materials to get consumer, foundations, personals, inputs and producers.

The microbiological quality of maras ice-cream can be low, as it is a good growth- medium for microbes due to its nutrients (lactose, proteins, etc) and to its almost neutral pH of 6–7. There are numerous reports on human pathogens incidence in maras ice- cream: Listeria monocytogenes), Salmonella species, Staphylococcus aureus, Yersinia enterocolitica Bacillus cereus etc. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a systematic approach used in the food industry for the identification, assessment, and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards, providing an effective way to advance food quality/safety, focusing on preventing hazards and improving processes.

The effectiveness of HACCP depends on the correct application of its principles, combined with other programs (prerequisites), such as Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), Good Hygiene Practices (GHPs), and Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs). For a successful food quality/safety control, prerequisite programs should be developed, linked to HACCP and managed within a quality management HACCP implementation generally improves the microbiological quality of food products.

The evaluation of the microbiological testing results can give important information not only on the quality of the foodstuff at a specific stage of its processing, but on the overall efficiency of HACCP design and implementation as well. The aim of this study was to evaluate the critic control point of maras ice-cream and the food safety of maras ice-cream and of the general production hygiene-conditions, following full implementation of HACCP system in an maras ice-cream producing that had only partially applied HACCP prerequisites.

Within the context of a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) based Risk Management Programme (or Food Safety Programme) that controls pasteurization and ingredients added after pasteurization, ice cream can be considered a low risk product. Bacteria will not grow in properly stored frozen ice cream.

The extent of the positive effects that a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) system, introduced in an ice cream factory, had on both the microbiological quality of the final product and on the total quality/hygiene management as well. Among others, two main hygiene problems concerning the presence of the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus in the final product and the contamination of the mains-supply water with Enterococcus faecalis were detected and corrected.

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