Background information

As the society becomes more affluent, people are more educated and are more willing to pay more for leisure and luxury. Although they may have been busy, they still seek to have a healthier lifestyle through eating as food is also part of everydays’s life. To meet the requirements of this food trend, our food company proposed to come up with the chicken salad sanwich that is healthy and nutritious. This food product will be able to cater to the needs of the local and the overseas market especially, mainly due to the fact that the market is moving towards healthier foods. In addition, the westerns consume bread as their staple food and the country is concern over their overweight issues. Therefore, our food product is definitely able to meet the market demands as the chicken salad sanwich is a healthy food product which consists of carbohydrate from bread, vitamins and minerals from vegetables, and protein from cheese and chicken. Fats are in minute amounts in this case.

To ensure good sales of this new product, we have to boost the confidence of the consumers not only by means of the taste of the food product, but also the foodsafety issues that are associated. To ensure the safe consumption of our chicken salad sanwich, a HACCP study plan has to be drafted develop. The HACCP study plan is a quality assurance system that is mainly targetted to ensure food safety by minimising microbial spoilage and contamination. The HACCP attempts to identify the spoilage problems at all points along the food manufacturing to service, which starts from supply of raw materials. The HACCP system consists of 7 elements: Identification and assesment of food hazards, determination of crirical control points, specification of criteria of control procedure, establishment and implementation of procedure for monitoring of CCP, establishment of corrective actions when CCP not under control, ensure proper documentation, and establishment of procudures for verification of proper system funtions.

As part of the business policy, a food risk assesment has to be drafted out. This is to ensure proper corrective actions to be taken immediately by authorised parties who are in charge. This will help to prevent any further money loss and legal implications should there be any outbreak of foodborne illness. The food recall plan is one that drafts out actions to be taken by the recall team. The food recall plan serves to protect the consumers and their health by destruction of unsafe foods.

Food legislations varies in different countries. To ensure that the food product is able to market in local and US, the food product has to must meet the legislations of both.

Introduction

Objectives
-To develop a product for the local and United States (US) market.
-To develop the HACCP study plan with identification of critical control points regulations and identificaton of foodborne illnesses associated.
-To identify regulations related to food hazards identified involved in HACCP study.
-To identify the roles of the local authority for hazard control and develop a recall plan study for preparation of any occasion.

Preparation of cheese

Steps in preparing cheese:
1. Remove cheese from packaging.
2. Wash the cheese block.
3. Slice up the cheese using knife and chopping board for cooked food.

Eating cheese

Apart from soft and unripened cheeses, all should be served unchilled for their distictive flavor and texture characteristics. It requires 20 minutes to an hour to do so. In addition, soft and semi-soft cheese should not be kept in room temperature more than 2 hours.

Simple summarised storage guidelines

Cottage cheese
Refrigerator (35-40 degrees F): 5-7 days
Freezer (0 degrees F): 1 month
Comments: Freezing changes texture of soft cheeses. Becomes crumbly when frozen; can be used in cooking when creaminess is not important.

Cream cheese
Refrigerator (35-40 degrees F): 2 weeks
Freezer (0 degrees F): 1 month
Comments: Freezing changes texture of soft cheeses. Becomes crumbly when frozen; can be used in cooking when creaminess is not important.

Parmesan, Romano, (grated)
Refrigerator (35-40 degrees F): 12 months
Freezer (0 degrees F): 6-8 months
Comments: Natural and processed cheeses can be frozen. Defrost in refrigerator; cheese will be less likely to crumble. Use soon after thawing.

Pasteurized process cheese
Refrigerator (35-40 degrees F): 3-4 weeks
Freezer (0 degrees F): 6-8 months
Comments: Natural and processed cheeses can be frozen. Defrost in refrigerator; cheese will be less likely to crumble. Use soon after thawing.

Storage of cheese

Cheese must be properly stored to ensure their quality. Unopened cheese may be stored in the refrigerator in temperatures between 34 and 38 degrees fehrenheit. Under this condition, they may retain their freshness beyond their date of expiry. However, to ensure this, cheeses must be tightly sealed or wrapped to prevent entry of airborne microbes and natural mold spores.

Fresh cheese kept tightly sealed and cold as they are high in moisture. Being more perishable than firmer cheese, they should be consumed within two weeks. Examples of such cheese includes the cottage, cream and Mascarpone.

Semi-soft, firm and hard cheese in the refrigerator, may remain fresh and be kept for four to eight weeks. However, like fresh cheese, they must be wrapped tightly. Some aged cheese may be retain their quality under proper storage cheese.

Hard cheese should be stored in their grated form and stored in sealed container under the refrigerator temperature for up to two weeks. They be stored under the freezer temperature if longer storage (3months) is desired, but must be used directly if it is removed. Examples of such cheeses include the parmesan and Asiago. Moreover, freezing of cheese is not always applied to all cheeses. For instance, if cheeses like cheddar and gouda are frozen, this will cause a crumbly texture, which degrades their quality.

Cheese should be tightly wrapped in foil or other moisture proof freezer wrapping and frozen quickly under the 0 degrees fehrenheit to prevent evaporation.

Having more surface area exposed to air, shredded cheeses tend to lose moisture and develop mold more easily than solid pieces. Thus, shredded cheese should be wrapped tightly and used within few days.

If mold are developed on the surface, they should be cut off about ½ inch from each affected side. The remains should be consumed within the week.

Aromatic cheeses, i.e blue and limburger, must be wrapped tightly and stored in airtight containers as they may spread their smell and flavor to other cheese and foods.

Natural cheese should be stored in the refrigerator, and best stored in their original packaging. If cheeses are opened, they should be stored wrapped tightly in the cling plastic wrap, separated from air and moisture.

In general, soft unripened cheeses can be kept for 10-30 days, if opened, for 2 weeks. Ricotta can be kept for 5 days.
Ripened or cured cheeses can be kept unopened for 3-6months, if opened 3-4weeks and if sliced 2 weeks. Examples are cheddar, edam, gouda, swiss and brick.

Cheese such as Brick, Edam, Muenster, Port du Salut, Swiss, Provolone, Mozzarella, and Camembert, Small cheeses, such as Camembert, can be frozen in their original packaging in small pieces, and thawed in refrigerator. They should be used immediately after thawing.

Classification of cheese

Cheeses are grouped in many ways: type of process used, ripening of cheese and texture of cheese. The are identified according to their country of origin. Unripened and ripened cheese varies in terms of their type of coagulation. Unripened cheese are made from acid coagulated milk proteins (casein) while the ripened cheeses are made by enzymes (runnet) and culture coagulated milk proteins, which are then aged by bacteria or mold.