Technical recommendations for updating good food manufacturing practices (GMP) aimed at preventing COVID-19 in food services: checklist and review of GMP manual

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus brought additional challenges to the Food and Nutrition Service, so in addition to meeting the hygienic-sanitary conditions of food, companies now need to incorporate new manufacturing practices. foods that aim to preserve the health of workers as well as consumers. In this context, this study aimed to carry out a literature review on technical recommendations for good food manufacturing practices related to the prevention of COVID-19 and prepare a checklist to facilitate the identification of failures, assess risk COVID-19 transmission in food services and guide how to adapt the good manufacturing practices manuals. Based on technical notes (NT) 47, 48 and 49 of 2020 that were edited by ANVISA, based on the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), a questionnaire was created containing 100 questions in the various categories of the food production sector, such as physical structure/building, hand washing conditions, general worker protection measures, material storage area, personal hygiene conditions, food storage area, company personnel, customer service area, preparation area, portioning and distribution area, food consumption area for workers, area for reception and food services received and food delivery services. In this way, we understand that biosafety measures must be adopted from the update of the manuals of good manufacturing practices in food services, and, to support this action, we propose the use of the checklist in the appendix to identify non-conformities related to the prevention of COVID -19.