Up Front: Updating the AIB Consolidated Standards

When I began working at AIB 34 years ago, the AIB Consolidated Standards were an unpublished guide that we gave to every facility we inspected. As AIB inspectors, we used our training, experience and the AIB Standards to help facilities identify food safety issues. After every inspection, we compared our findings to the AIB Standards and the newly released Good Manufacturing Practices.
During the last three decades, minor revisions have been made to the GMPs and the AIB Consolidated Standards based on industry needs, regional differences, new issues and technological advancements, but the basic prerequisites of food safety have always remained the same. During that time, AIB also expanded our offerings to include separate AIB Standards for agricultural crops, beverage plants, dairy plants, food-contact packaging manufacturing facilities, food distribution centers, fresh-cut produce, fresh produce and fruit packinghouses, and nonfood contact packaging manufacturing facilities. From the beginning, the GMPs and the AIB Standards were designed to be resourceful training tools applicable across the globe. As we expanded internationally we took the AIB Standards with us, translating them into several languages. The next thing we knew they were widely accepted by food companies around the world.

Recent international efforts to modernize regulations, as evidenced by the FDA’s modernized GMP white paper and the Food Protection Plan, gave AIB a wake-up call that it was time to revise and update our Standards. For the past 18 months, a team of AIB employees has dedicated hundreds of hours to this worthwhile project. In January 2009, the newly revised AIB International Consolidated Standards for Inspection will go into effect. This has been a long journey that involved input from AIB auditors and executive staff, our advisory board and select clients. Although the basic requirements for prerequisite programs remain the same, the design of the AIB Standards has been modernized to be easier to use and apply across the globe, and to be used as a training tool. Addendums, reference tools and helpful examples have been included to help our clients better understand requirements.

I know of no other publication that presents the basics of food safety prerequisites in such an easy-to-understand format. Like The AIB GMP and Prerequisites Guide released earlier this year, the AIB International Consolidated Standards for Inspection help food companies develop and improve food safety programs. I, as well as every other AIB employee, am proud to be involved in the production of such a helpful resource for the food industry. We encourage you to use this tool to validate food safety programs at the floor level and verify that all of your employees, from CEO to line workers, know and understand the requirements of the AIB International Consolidated Standards for Inspection. AIB

The author is Vice President of Food Safety Education, AIB International.

We encourage you to use this tool to validate food safety programs at the floor level and verify that all of your employees, from CEO to line workers, know and understand the requirements of the AIB International Consolidated Standards for Inspection.