Experience and Perceptions of ISO 9000 and HACCP by Hong Kong Food and Beverage Organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore the views of individuals responsible for quality assurance in Hong Kong (HK) food and beverage companies with regards to their acceptance or rejection of the ISO 9000 quality management system or HACCP food safety system standards, along with the reasoning underlying such views. Thirty Hong Kong food or beverage manufacturing companies were approached and in‐depth interviews in the form of surveys were conducted with 11 companies. Participating companies included companies that had implemented both the ISO 9000 and HACCP standards, companies that had implemented only ISO 9000 or HACCP, and a company that had implemented neither. Half of the companies that participated in this study were large companies with 500 or more employees. The use of ISO 9000 was reported to improve the maturity of other quality systems. The use of HACCP was reported to improve the maturity of other food safety systems. While more companies used HACCP than the ISO 9000 standard to comply with customers’ requirements, the difficulties in the training of staff and added costs for documentation/data storage were reported as common to both standards.