FORMATION AND CONTROL OF THE QUALITY OF FOOD AND FEEDS: FROM THE BASIC TECHNOLOGIES TO THE HUMAN FACTOR

Abstract

Today, the European vector of our country’s development and the strategy of economic partnership with the EU pose certain challenges for our state. Signing the EU Association Agreement made an important impact on the changes in Ukrainian legislation concerning harmonization of laws and rules in economics. Providing the proper quality of agricultural products remains an important task. It requires improving the organizational and legal support in changing accents in legal regulation: giving manufacturers more freedom in economic issues instead of administering directly. The above-mentioned Agreement gave a good boost to create the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, which, in turn allowed merging three state organizations to start monitoring food safety and quality “from field to fork.” Especially important are the Requirements to the Development, Introduction, and Usage of Standing Procedures based on the HACCP system principles. Today, HACCP-based certification of standing procedures is not obligatory, unlike the presence of Prerequisite Programmes of HACCP, which is obligatory. A Prerequisite Programme must cover 13 processes: from planning the manufacturing, auxiliary, and staff facilities in order to avoid cross-contamination to marking finished products. A number of requirements must be met by each of these processes in particular. The authors of this article have analysed the legislation changes and the latest publications about a number of Ukrainian food enterprises that have introduced the HACCP principles. This analysis has allowed concluding that in these enterprises, this process has caused some changes in their manufacturing technologies and management systems. Groups of factors influencing the products’ quality have been outlined. The importance of the human element at various stages of quality formation and control has been emphasized. The existing systems of quality and safety management in food industries have been analysed in detail.