Validação de medidas de controlo de qualidade em unidades de restauração colectiva

Mestrado em Engenharia Alimentar - Instituto Superior de Agronomia

This study was born from the growing concern of catering establishments to ensure the production of safe food for consumers. In these units the variety of cooked dishes becomes the whole process even more complex. Thus, it is important that these institutions make use of preventive tools (such as HACCP) capable of anticipating and controlling hazards by applying combinations of appropriate control measures. The validation activity it’s based on observation and on scientific and technical research. Within this study, were used and analyzed only the results of the microbiological analysis of samples of ready to eat foods collected in 75 catering units (samples that are associated with PCC4 and PPRO1 and corresponding, respectively, for the cook food and vegetable’s disinfection), since, according to ISO 22000:2005 only control measures of CCPs and PPROs need validation. Only 12.1% of the 132 microbiological tests performed in the first two quarters of 2010 exceeded the microbiological limits. These results will be interpreted and evaluated in order to understand what are the causes that lead the potential failure of PPRO1 and PCC4. The instruments used in the result’s analysis were the INSA Values Guide - guidelines that establishes that food is divided into three groups: Group 1 (cooked food), Group 2 (food made with raw ingredients) and Group 3 (salads, vegetables or fruits). The most susceptible group was Group 1, followed by Groups 2 and 3. The responsible microorganisms for unsatisfactory results are coliform bacteria and microorganisms at 30 º C, with a total of 16 unsatisfactory results. Considering each group and the identified microorganisms were listed some causes of microbiological contamination that may have been responsible for non compliance: breach in good practices, disregard for PCC4 and PPRO1. According to microbiological results of smears performed on subjects (83% compliance) and equipment (89.3% compliance) it was found that good handling practices and sanitation were accurately accomplished. Therefore, the disrespect for these prerequisites isn’t the main cause for obtaining unsatisfactory values. Only a serious failure of good practice could lead to an initial contamination, which promoted the ineffectiveness of PCC4 or PPRO1. Eliminating the possibility that the failures in the good practices are determinant only stands the conclusion that the occurrence of failures in PCC4 and / or PPRO1 decisively contributed to the results obtained. However, that disrespect for PCC4 occurred in Groups 1 and 2, and considering that the food in Group 1 had the highest number of non-compliant results , automatically, is reasonable to argue that disregard by this CCP was crucial cause for unsatisfactory values (PPRO1 is common to Groups 2 and 3 which had fewer non-compliant results). According to the results it’s clear that the occurrence of gaps in PPRO1 and especially in PCC4 were the most probable causes to the obtained results. However, in some cases, failures occur in good practices after cooking, may have contributed to these results, such as cross-contamination and human error. General, the high level of compliance (87.9%) in microbiological analysis of fast food samples shows that the control measures applied in catering establishments considered in the study are satisfactory