Editorial

Citation

Zaida Taylor, J. (2008), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2008.04120eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 20, Issue 5

What are the practical and psychological barriers to HACCP in the hospitality industry and how have they been overcome?

Welcome to the second Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) issue. I should like to thank Dr Joanne Taylor and her team for their outstanding theme issue on practical and psychological barriers to effective food safety management, centred on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.

If you have a key industry challenge in mind that you would like to address via a WHATT theme issue, do please contact me.Dr Richard TeareManaging Editor, WHATT

The aim of this WHATT theme issue is to present an innovative new method of HACCP-based food safety management for food businesses within the hospitality industry. The new method was developed by a multi-disciplinary team at the International Centre of HACCP Innovation at the University of Salford, in conjunction with the UK Food Standards Agency. It is currently available in its complete form as a system called Menu-Safe, and in a shorter ready to use package for very small businesses called Safer Food Better Business (SFBB). The outcomes of this work have set a benchmark for developments in HACCP for small and less developed businesses worldwide.

Through a series of inter-linking papers, this theme issue investigates the practical and psychological barriers to food safety management and HACCP in the industry and shows how and why the “classical” method of HACCP does not work. It presents the new method with detailed examples and explanation, and then demonstrates a rigorous evaluation of the new method to ensure it is an effective and accessible solution. Viewpoints are put forward from the manager and head chef of a small independent restaurant and the catering manager of a large theme park with over 35 restaurants and cafes.

Each author has been chosen to write for this special theme edition based on their role in the development of the new method and their particular area of expertise. While I represented the fields of psychology and HACCP in the original development team, Professor John Forte and Dr Jerry Taylor represented the voice of the industry as two highly experienced chefs. Professor Eunice Taylor, as a food scientist, HACCP expert and also qualified chef, led the team and brought together government, academia and industry to produce a system that complied with legislative, scientific and practitioner needs.

The viewpoints are from practitioners who were amongst the very first to trial the new method in their businesses, and who have now been using it for several years.

I hope that you will enjoy reading this series of papers.

About the theme editor

Joanne Zaida Taylor is an HACCP psychologist at the International Centre for HACCP Innovation, University of Salford. She leads a Master’s programme in HACCP and postgraduate courses on new methods of HACCP for the hospitality industry. She has pioneered the use of in-depth psychological research methods in the field and her research work is widely published and replicated. She has worked on secondment for the UK Food Standards Agency and on placement at the FAO/WHO. She was on the original development team that created the new method of HACCP for hospitality presented in this theme issue; she authored the first textbooks about the method and has presented it at conferences and seminars world-wide.

Joanne Zaida TaylorTheme Editor