Welcome to the Food Safety course in the Groundnut Academy.
We are glad that you have committed to learning more about producing safe products from peanuts or groundnuts. While many examples presented in this course involve groundnut processing, the overall concepts address food safety in general and would apply to other types of facilities.
Groundnut or peanut is a shelf-stable and tasty food that people around the world eat. It provides important nutritional benefits and even is good for the soil. But, processed peanuts can make people sick if manufacturers ignore food safety.
In this course you will learn about making a food safety plan. That plan will include:
Good Manufacturing Practices. The way that you maintain your materials and facilities, eliminate pests, address sanitation, manage employees and even arrange transportation can impact the safety of your products.
Types of Hazards. Food can become unsafe when certain hazardous conditions are allowed into the manufacturing process. These hazards can be chemical, biological or physical.
Identifying and Analyzing Hazards. Food safety experts have created structured plans to identify hazards and analyze how they can cause a problem in production facilities. Learning how to use these systems will help you to identify potential dangers and ensure that those hazards don’t impact your product.
Preventive Controls. Producing safe food means controlling the manufacturing process so that hazards don’t cause a problem. The same expert system to identify hazards will help you to document how you will control those hazards. Called “preventive controls,” these actions will help you to prevent hazards that come from diseases, allergens, poor sanitation or bad supplies coming into the factory.
Monitoring, Verification and Records. You’ll know that your facility is hazard-free because you monitor properly, verify that everything is working and keep good records.
Food safety can demand time and attention, but the lessons in this course apply to both a large, well-funded factory and a small, just opened business. Good practices can make both a success.
