Food Science Reviews, Volume 1, Food Hygiene and Safety David Watson, Ellis Horwood Ltd, 1992, ISBN O-13-027369-4,80 pp.

This slim book is the first issue in a series of Food Science Reviews, each volume of which aims to provide a group of articles on a major area of food science. The reviews in this first volume are from several of those who contri- buted to a conference on ‘Food Produc- tion, Preservation and Safety’ held at the University of Birmingham in November 1989. The time delay in publication is apparent in some articles which already appear dated.

The target readership is final year undergraduates and graduates in all food science courses as well as researchers in industry and government agencies. Each review is meant to cover the key points of the topic, without minor detail, to provide authoritative articles. It is debatable whether this aim has been achieved with all contribu- tions. Some are short, crisp and easy to read whereas others are more laboured and too detailed.

The material is divided into two parts. The first covers the microbio- logical safety of food and includes reviews on hazard analysis critical con- trol point system (HACCP): application in the food industry for microbial safety (S. Leaper), Escherichia coli and Shigefla (R. J. Gross), foodborne Campylobacter enteritis (M. B. Skirrow) and listeriosis (K. G. Kerr and R. W. Lacey). The second contains two contributions on the chemical safety of food, one dealing with anti- microbial agents in fermented and non- fermented fruit beverages (I. S. Bennett and S. M. Hammond) and the other with chemical contamination of food (D. H. Watson).

It is unfortunate that the microbiolo- gical section contains no review of the organism which continues to cause

major concern in relation to food safety and for which control measures are appearing to have little effect, i.e. Salmonella. This would have given a more balanced overview of food hygiene and safety. The section is further unbalanced by the uneven allocation of space to the different topics; the chapter on listeriosis is three times the length of any other review in the section. The authors of this latter chapter do not appear to have heeded the editor’s request to give an overview dealing with key points - they present a detailed review from a rather personal viewpoint with a selective choice of references which, overall, does not give a measured and balanced opinion.

The two contributions in the chemical section give solid information, if some- what heavy reading for the non-food chemist. Although the first chapter heading is ‘Antimicrobial agents in .’ the bulk of the review deals with sulphur dioxide, its use in the manu- facture of wines, in the control of non- enzymatic browning, in the control of spoilage organisms and its use as a preservative. The final chapter covers the range of chemical contaminants of food including components of packag- ing materials, pesticide residues, veter- inary drug residues, natural toxins, other organic and inorganic contami- nants, and surveillance of food for these chemicals.

Although most of the contributions are useful, the volume as a whole does not live up to the title ‘Food Hygiene and Safety’ as there are too many aspects not covered. Perhaps another volume is planned to compensate for the omissions.

D. Roberts

HACCP: Principles and Applications Merle D. Pierson and Donald A. Corlett, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992, ISBN O-442-00989-5

The principles making up the hazards analysis critical control point (HACCP) procedure are becoming widely used within the international food industry. HACCP is now recognized as one of the most cost-effective methods of assuring the safety of food products.

HACCP, Principles and Applications has been produced as a course book from an Institute of Food Technology course held in 1991 and is based on

the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) 1989 pamphlet ‘HACCP Principles for Food Production’.

The book comprises 14 chapters. Chapters l-3 introduce HACCP, giving the background to its development and the need for a preventative system for assuring food safety. Unlike the NACMCF 1989 publication, which only looked at microbiological hazards, this

Book Reviews

book also covers chemical and physical hazards. Chapter 3 gives a very good overview of microbiological, chemical and physical hazards, listing the dif- ferent types of hazard together with any associated illness and its severity. This is presented in an easy to understand format and will give useful background information to personnel involved in a HACCP study who may not be aware of the different hazards.

Chapter 4-10 explain the HACCP principles outlined in the NACMCF 1989 guide. The reader may be con- fused by the approach to hazard analysis and risk assessment described in Chapter 4. This is based on an approach to HACCP first by grouping products according to a formal risk assessment system. This is described in the NACMCF 1989 pamphlet. How- ever, this approach was replaced by a more widely accepted procedure for establishing CCPs described in the NACMCF paper ‘Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point System’ in their update of 20 March 1992.

Chapter 5, covering the identification of critical control points (CCPs), also suffers because of the NACMCF 1992 update. The chapter itself does not describe how to identify CCPs but only gives examples of CCPs associated with different foods. This is not really helpful to the reader as it is not possible to cover all foods in a book of this nature and it should not be the aim of a book outlining the principles of HACCP to list CCPs, but it should describe the thought process required to identify CCPs in a process. The NACMCF, Codex committee and other organi- zations now advocate the use of a decision tree approach for identifying CCPs, most based around the decision tree presented in the 1992 NACMCF document. No mention is made of the use of this approach, now receiving international acceptance, although the 1992 NACMCF HACCP guide contain- ing the decision tree is included as a appendix to the book, so that the reader can see how the concept works.

The remaining chapters, outlining the seven principles, give clear and concise information. Chapter 7, on monitoring CCPs, gives good examples of how to set up monitoring systems and Chapter 9, on record keeping, is an excellent chapter, clearly setting out all the parts of a documentation system that will satisfy regulatory authority scrutiny and, although focused on US food law, the general principles are applicable to all food producers.

The remaining chapters in this book deal with the implementation and appli- cation of HACCP, giving some useful information on getting started with HACCP. The concept of control points and critical control points is also intro- duced to help focus on areas of the

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