Food safety risk analysis from the producers’ perspective: prioritisation of production process stages by HACCP and TOPSIS

From the manufacturers perspective, the hazard analysis and criticalcontrol point (HACCP) system nowadays represents the mainly way toimplement the food safety risk management in food industries. Nevertheless,the identification and prioritization of hazards as the outcome of the firstprinciple of HACCP is not sufficient to identify production process stages thatmore significantly and critically contribute to the consumer’s risks. With thisrecognition, the present paper proposes a quantitative risk assessment (QRA)approach based on HACCP and technique for order of preference by similarityto ideal solution (TOPSIS) to individuate production process phases on whichimplementing corrective actions to improve the consumers’ safety. Thedesigned methodological approach is implemented on the smoked salmonmanufacturing process of a real Sicilian industry.