Aitken Spence first in SE Asia to get Int'l Food Safety Standard

by Beverley Jansz

Heritance Hotels & Resorts and Aitken Spence Hotels & Resorts announced the successful completion of ISO 22000 and HACCP certification audits for three of their properties.

ISO 22000-2005/HACCP is the latest international standard on food safety management systems, which ensures high food hygienically standards, while preserving the quality of cuisine. This will gradually become the norm and finally a mandatory requirement for all food-handling operations globally.

Heritance Kandalama, The Tea Factory and Earl's Regency have been certified in compliance with ISO 22000 by SGS- the certifying company.

Aitken Spence, which owns and manages a chain of internationally award-winning properties, revealed that the other hotels in the chain too will be conducting certification audits. When so certified, the Company would have the distinction of being the only hotel chain in Southeast Asia to have this privilege.

Recently, the Group's Skills Development Chef Dimuthu Kumarasinghe, who won in Singapore "The Food and Hotel Asia" Culinary Competition and the highest gold medal tally in the last Culinary Olympics held in 2004 in Frankfurt, while Aitken Spence was the runaway winners at the last Culinary Art competition in Colombo organized by the Chefs' Guild of Sri Lanka.

It has also won many prestigious international awards for food and service, the CNN American Express award for excellence in hospitality service the SAGA award continuously for 10 years, the Green Globe 21 Certification, ISO 14001 Certification and the American Leeds certification on environmental standards. Commenting on yet another pioneering achievement by Aitken Spence Hotels, its Managing Director Malin Hapugoda said:

"We have established Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) to ensure that all our clients enjoy safe and quality food".

"Winning many international accolades or setting new standards in the industry has not diminished our commitment to constantly offer superior service to our valued clientele. I am very pleased to say that it is this commitment by our highly-trained staff that has won us this certification"

ISO 22000 International Standard specifies the needed requirements for a Food Safety Management System, the key elements of this being the, principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), interactive communication, system management, pre-requisite programmes.

During the certification process the hotels exposed their entire food chain from the producer through the supplier to the consumer, in ensuring that high standards of quality and hygiene are maintained.

Effective interactive communications throughout the food chain downstream and upstream were developed to ensure delivery of safe food. A structural managements system was incorporated into the overall operational management system, which has been aligned with the ISO 9001 quality standard.

Based on these basic standards, our chefs with advice from SGS compiled their own quality and safety standards manual for their individual hotels. While most companies would seek assistance of the auditing company for the rules, we are proud at Aitken Spence that it was our own staff who took ownership and laid down the needed quality standards. This would ensure continuity and commitment as ownership is by ourselves.

With auditable requirements, ISO 22000 standard combines the HACCP plan with prerequisite programmes (PRPs). The standard requires that all hazards expected to occur are identified and analysed, in order to control critical points where hazards can occur in the operational flow.

The standards include planning, implementing and maintaining a food safety management system, which will comply with all regulatory requirements, assess customer requirements, effective communication with the food chain, confirming to the food safety policies of the state, and demonstrate conformity to all relevant parties while seeking certification.

All food handlers in the chain have been trained, while the other stakeholders are sensitized and their awareness enhanced. All stakeholders would play an active part in maintaining the standards.