Validation – is to going to
achieve the outcome that we desire and require? An example of this would be, we
say that we are going to cook a food to a particular temperature because we
want to make sure that there is no harmful bacteria remain. To validate the
temperature chosen, we could refer to legislation, scientific journals or other
data that supports the cooking temperature we have selected will kill the
harmful bacteria.
The
major steps involved in validation include: determining the method(s),
selecting a surrogate or pathogenic microorganism, identifying worst-case
scenarios, executing the validation study by a qualified microbiologist or food
safety expert, collecting and analyzing data, and preparing a validation
report.
Verification- is defined as being the things we do to see
if we are actually doing what we say we are going to do. So in the above
example, with the temperature to kill the harmful bacteria, we would check or
verify that the food was actually reaching that temperature. This would be done
through testing the temperature of the food.
The
first step in performing verification activities is to determine all of the
processes and parameters that need to be verified and identify qualified
experts who can perform this task. These experts could be internal employees or
external consultants. However, verification should be carried out by someone
other than the person responsible for the process’ monitoring and corrective
actions. In most situations, the internal quality assurance team or third-party
auditors perform this task to ensure that the method or process follows the
specifications and complies with current food safety standards.
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