For the first time ever, the Advanced HACCP workshop taught by the HACCP Consulting Group was given in Chile, with the aim of training and advising industry players.
The United States is one of the main destinations of the Chilean poultry and pork industry exports. To ensure that the products arriving from various countries meet the highest quality standards in their processes, the North American country conducts strict audits. One of them is HACCP, “a very important, strict, technical audit with many requirements. Usually, countries like the United States come here to inspect the entire certification and review system of the exporting process for several days,” explained Pedro Guerrero, ChileCarne’s Technical Manager.
This is why in late September and the first days of October, the Advanced HACCP Course was taught, to provide continuous support in updating the quality assurance systems of Chilean exporting companies, while strengthening meat industry worker training for official audits (keeping exporting markets and figures).
Pedro Guerrero explained that they hire the HACCP Consulting Group, a prestigious US firm that trains companies that sell their products to that country, both to be sold in the US or to be exported from there. In Chile’s case, they focused on companies that send shipments to the North American country and other markets.
The course was attended by 139 people, including professionals and technicians from the meat industry, the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), as well as poultry, pork, mutton, and beef exporting companies, who obtained an attendance certificate recognized by the renowned International HACCP Alliance at the end of the workshop.
During the course, companies were updated on the entire modernization system carried out by the US, as well as the inspection system, all of HACCP prerequisites, and the quality systems that countries must have in place in the private field. The workshop lecturer was Robert Savage, Vice-President of the organization, who was also in charge of implementing this system in the US meat market.
“This course not only provides training in advanced HACCP, but it also covers other subjects related to certification, exports, and food safety requirements demanded by the US, which are the same requirements other countries demand,” Pedro Guerrero pointed out.
According to Guerrero, this system was initially created for NASA, to make sure supplies would not contaminate or poison astronauts. Later on, the model was successfully replicated in the global food industry.[:]
