Page 42 - Food&Drink Business magazine October 2022

HYGIENE & SAFETY
FZP, FZS, SSZ, NFZ: What does it all mean?
equipment can be food safe and suitable for use in food handling facilities even though they are never supposed to come into contact with food. Other items, like gloves for example, are designed to touch food directly. They too need to be food safe.
In your food facility, gloves need to be food safe and suitable their intended use. As does the floor and all the other equipment and materials in your facility.
What is important is that each item is suitable for its intended use. We use the concept of food zones to define which products are suitable for what area.
Food zones are areas of a food handling facility, or parts of a food handling device.
The zones that are closest to open or exposed foods are called food zone primary and
A HACCP International certificate will have one of these ‘food zone’ codes – FZP, FZS, SSZ, NFZ – to inform the user where, in a food handling operation, they are safe to use.
DO you eat off the floor? Of course not! So, you don’t need a food-grade floor, right? Wrong.
If you are a food manufacturer, or operate a food handling facility, then you absolutely need a food-grade floor. But how can a material that doesn’t touch food be ‘food-grade’?
At HACCP International, it is a question we get asked lot. We operate a certification scheme for food-safe equipment, materials and services, including floors and equipment like pest management devices.
Items like floors and pest
42 | Food&Drink business | October 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au