Verification of attendance level to self-control programs at dairy industries of Minas Gerais state

Abstract

Foodborne diseases are the most serious public health issues in the world. Milk and dairy products are often involved in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Recently, the Brazilian government has made several efforts to prevent these diseases, among them, approval of several standards related to the adoption of quality programs in dairy products. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate the level of implementation of self-control programs in dairy industries. Fifteen dairy industries settled in South of Minas Gerais state and registered in the Brazilian federal inspection service were evaluated. A checklist was developed and applied by the method of direct observation and also through inquiries to employees and owners. All evaluated establishments were classified as “bad” or “extremely bad”, demonstrating that they did not meet even 50% of items described in the legislation for self-control programs implementation (SCPI). Industries were also evaluated separately for each control element obtaining different rankings from “great” (between 91 and 100% suitability), “good” (70 to 90%),”regular” (50 to 69%), “bad” (20 to 49%) and “extremely bad”(0 to 19%). The results showed that industries evaluated in this study have serious deficiencies in their SCPI, which may compromise the safety of finished products since there is no efficient and effective quality management.

Keywords

• qualidade, inocuidade, leite, lácteos