Quality management of food products for enteral nutrition: process approach

Abstract

Background. Implementation of quality management systems (QMS) at company level is one of the most effective means to enhance the quality of products. An urgent problem becoming especially important in the latest years is providing people with certain illnesses and injuries with foods for enteral feeding. Marketing of this product category, considering the target group of potential consumers, requires creation of relevant principles for their quality management.
The article’s objective is to elaborate principles for quality management of food products for enteral nutrition on the basis of process approach.
Material and methods. The study is based on the methods of scientific knowledge, system approach and summarization, international and national legislative and regulatory documents, research works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists.
Results. An important component of quality management is analysis of the product life cycle as a closed integrated system, with account of its internal and external relations and dependences. Key phases of the life cycle of foods for enteral feeding are indentified in the study.
QMS can be effective once its principles are used in conformity with International Standards ISO 9000, which put emphasis on process approach. Processes involved in QMS for foods for enteral feeding are identified and systematized, and criteria of the processes performance are defined.
Along with process approach, quality of foods for enteral nutrition should be managed using the approach from the perspective of risk oriented thinking, which essence is in building up a risk management system designed to account for potential risks occurring in manufacturing of products at the phase of planning, and in elaborating measures of reaction on them. Continual analysis and control of external and internal relations in QMS, setting up correlations between quality indicators or groups of quality indicators within processes or sub-processes, and identification of the regularities will assure high performance of the system through reducing risks or inconsistencies that may occur in its implementation.
Conclusion. Tendencies in markets of foods for enteral nutrition are caused by the need for the continual improvement of their safety, which requires future developments of comprehensive approaches to risk management, development of methodology for assessment of QMS performance and effectiveness, and integrated system for management of quality and safety of foods.