NEW - COVID19 Mitigation Strategy for Food Industry One-day Online Course

As all food professionals are aware, maintaining continuity of the supply chain during the COVID-19 crisis is critical to operations and it is essential that organisations incorporate a COVID-19 mitigation strategy into their existing food safety management system. This course provides you with the biological background of the COVID-19 virus, how to assess the risk within a food company as well as the preventative measures to reduce the risk. It will also address the strategy in the event of a positive case on-site and the subsequent approach to recovery.

Background
SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is a virus that is unlikely to be transmitted by food. Various food safety authorities from the European Union, US, Australia and New Zealand share this view. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the quintessential parasite it needs a host cell for almost all of its life-sustaining function.

As the information provided by the HSE has been stating from the very beginning of this crisis, the infection is typically spread from one person to another via respiratory droplets produced during coughing or sneezing. As the onset time from exposure to symptoms of COVID-19 (the disease) can be from 2-14 days it can be extremely difficult to identify the exact source or time of infection.

The Irish Taoiseach’s address to the country on St. Patrick’s evening was stark with the message that this is the calm before the storm. Events in Italy demonstrate vividly the consequences of the virus when it takes hold of society. The promise made by the Taoiseach that medical and food supply chains would still function so that there is food on the shelves to avoid social panic places an onus on us food professionals to inform ourselves about the virus, plan to prevent infection, prepare for infection and finally consider recovery if or when our business is affected.

All those years of hard work achieving BRC Grade A, FSSC or any other GFSI certification should now be a major part of your mitigation strategy for COVID-19. The Plan-Do-Check-Act concept (PDCA) for organizational and operational risk management as promoted in ISO 22000:2018 must now become a key tool in protecting your business and the national and international food supply chain.

This training programme is divided into four modules:-

Module 1 (Inform & Risk Assess) will consist of information on the SARS-CoV-2 (virus) and COVID-19 (disease), its method of transmission, proliferation and how you can kill it. It will also explore a Risk Assessment Methodology to protect your employees and work environment.

Module 2 (Plan, Do, Check) will deal with Preventive Measures with the obvious issue of hand-washing but also measures that you may not yet be implementing

Module 3 (Act) will focus on Preparedness for an employee becoming infected. Will it be possible to keep your facility opened based on the Risk Assessment you did during the Plan, Do, Check stages?

Module 4 (Aftermath Recovery) will focus on business recovery if you had an infection case. What cleaning routines will be necessary, how will they be validated etc.

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• Module 1 Inform & Risk Assess
o Biological Hazard – SARS-CoV-2 - Virus
o COVID-19 - Disease
o Summary of Pandemic
o Biological Structure
o Advice Sources
o Mode of transmission
o Basic Control Measures
o How to Risk Assess in an independent, objective and transparent manner (Inherent Risk, Risk Reduction, Residual Risk)

• Module 2 Preventive Control (Plan, Do, Check)
o Personal Hygiene Controls
o Factory Zoning Controls / Mapping
o Personal Spacing Controls
o Staff Training
o Shift changeover Routine
o Cleaning Procedures
- Food Manufacturing Environment
- Non-Food Manufacturing Environment
o On-site food consumption
o Monitoring and Verification of Controls

• Module 3 Preparedness Response (Act)
o Identification of potential contact staff members
o Staff testing protocol
o Staff isolation policy
o Quantify and isolate affected work colleagues
o Crisis management team protocols

• Module 4 Aftermath Recovery
o Review of Incident
o Review of Preventive Controls
o Validation of Sanitation Controls
o Validation of Personal Hygiene Controls
o Crisis Management Review

• Course Assessment / Review

• CEOs of Food Business Operations
• Technical & Quality Personnel
• Crisis Management Team Members
• HR Personnel & Corporate Compliance Personnel
• Health & Safety Personnel & Operations Personnel
• Supply Chain Personnel, Engineering Personnel

Participants will achieve the following learning outcomes from the programme;

• Understand the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 )and the disease COVID-19 plus its inherent risk to humans and your food business (Module 1)
• Understand how to Risk assess the efficacy of existing hygiene control measures to ensure the Residual Risk is acceptable (Module 2)
• Understand how existing pre-requisite programmes can be enhanced to deal with the new emerging hazard (Module 2)
• Know how to prepare for a positive COVID-19 employee on your site (Module 3)
• Know how to develop business recovery protocols ensuring all sanitation and preventive controls are validated before returning to production of food in a safe environment (Module 4)

In-House Courses
For In-House courses, the Tutor will contact the Course Organiser in advance to discuss the programme in more detail in order to tailor it specifically to the organisation.

Course Manual
Delegates will receive a very comprehensive course manual.

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