[kpowers.nj]

The International Organization for Standards is an international committee dedicated to creating standards of industry for what I thought was to keep criteria at a high standard for the safety of consumers.  However, if this was the case, they would make their standards available to everybody so anyone could look up and decide if they are being scammed and do something about it.

I am now convinced, after searching for a very long time for a standard of microbiological level in foods, that the purpose of this organization is not to keep industry at a high standard but instead to create standards they want everyone to abide to only to make money.  Also, they must have someone whose sole responsibility is to browse the internet to make sure their standards are not made public because I found a site that lists all of the current complaints for ISO standards online
http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=819904

These standards are not helping anybody when they are kept a secret.

#OPENDATA #OPENSOURCE #FREEDATA

[DrCMS]

The International Organization for Standards is an international committee dedicated to creating standards of industry for what I thought was to keep criteria at a high standard for the safety of consumers. 

Do you have any evidence that was meant to be its purpose?  Just because you think something does not make it true.  As far as I know ISO standards are mainly for business to business transaction not consumer protection as that is covered by different legislation enacted by national governments.

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

I am now convinced, after searching for a very long time for a standard of microbiological level in foods, that the purpose of this organization is not to keep industry at a high standard but instead to create standards they want everyone to abide to only to make money. 

Keeping up to these standards is certainly expensive but that does not mean they do not fulfil the purpose "to keep industry at a high standard".

You just seem to expect to find everything for free on the internet and then when you can not you assume some kind of global conspiracy to keep you down. 

[eazye1334]

The International Organization for Standards is an international committee dedicated to creating standards of industry for what I thought was to keep criteria at a high standard for the safety of consumers. 

Do you have any evidence that was meant to be its purpose?  Just because you think something does not make it true.  As far as I know ISO standards are mainly for business to business transaction not consumer protection as that is covered by different legislation enacted by national governments.

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

Yeah, we're ISO 9001 as well. After going through the accreditation process, it is safe to say nothing of ISO 9001 has anything to do with consumer safety.

[curiouscat]

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

@DrCMS: I agree with most of your well reasoned reply to the OP's rant.

But I've my doubts about the utility of the ISO certification process. I've seen absolutely atrociously run plants (often in third world countries) that boast the ISO certification. When I looked closer, the plant and its processes were in shambles.

Is that just me, or have others noticed this?

As a standards body they do a lot of good, but are their certifications up to par?

[kpowers.nj]

How can a microbiological standard for food have nothing to do with consumer safety?

I am working on deciding if a certain food is safe to distribute to the public.  Where do I get this information if not a set standard?  The FDA has no specific information for what I am looking for. I am ranting and pretty frustrated that such a standard that I need FOR consumer safety is not accessible. 

[eazye1334]

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

@DrCMS: I agree with most of your well reasoned reply to the OP's rant.

But I've my doubts about the utility of the ISO certification process. I've seen absolutely atrociously run plants (often in third world countries) that boast the ISO certification. When I looked closer, the plant and its processes were in shambles.

Is that just me, or have others noticed this?

As a standards body they do a lot of good, but are their certifications up to par?

From what I've seen, a lot of places are ISO for ~5 days out of the year. They'll scramble to get everything up to par, skate by the audit, and then let everything slide until the next year. It also seems dependent on the auditor. The guy who just did ours has done ours for years and a lot of the older workers know him to be a huge perv, often saying it's likely he would pass you if you took him out to a strip club.

Obviously both instances lead to a plant boasting of ISO certification, but not really deserving of it.

[kpowers.nj]

The International Organization for Standards is an international committee dedicated to creating standards of industry for what I thought was to keep criteria at a high standard for the safety of consumers. 

Do you have any evidence that was meant to be its purpose?  Just because you think something does not make it true.  As far as I know ISO standards are mainly for business to business transaction not consumer protection as that is covered by different legislation enacted by national governments.

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

Yeah, we're ISO 9001 as well. After going through the accreditation process, it is safe to say nothing of ISO 9001 has anything to do with consumer safety.

ISO website homepage: "ISO International Standards ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality."

Also: "When products and services conform to International Standards consumers can have confidence that they are safe, reliable and of good quality. For example, ISO's standards on road safety, toy safety and secure medical packaging are just a selection of those that help make the world a safer place."

Am I interpreting this wrong?  Perhaps because my main concern and purpose for seeking out the standard is the safety of consumers I am more inclined to see it this way.  My purpose for looking for a standard is not accreditation.  The FDA only has certain microbiological standards for food, and the one I am looking for is not one of them.  Am I to assume there is no standard?

Maybe consumer safety is not their main concern, but how can it have nothing to do with it?  Why make standards for food for consumers if not for their safety?

[DrCMS]

Sure companies can play games to just meet the standards on paper and hope to bluff an auditor in person but even doing that is likely to raise the standards in that company a bit.  A good auditor will not get taken in by the polish and will look deeper and deeper until they are certain standards are high or not.  Our quality auditor for example has a habit of picking a batch card at random and tracking every raw material used back to the approvals/specs/CofA's, checking the calibration of the scales/flow meters used to charge those raw materials, looking at every in-process and final sample analysis and checking the method of analysis/calibration certificates/pressicion/accuracy, checking the original scale up data on the process and any customer complaints on that product etc etc.  It's hard to get past those audits without the underlying systems being robust and up to scratch.  So I guess it depends how good the auditor is at seeing through any scams and really getting to the heart of a system.

[billnotgatez]

In the USA the USDA monitors food production.
In many plants the USDA workers are there regularly taking samples
If you company fails the sampling they get a federal audit
I checked with my food QC friend and they said ICMSF sets microbial rules as well as the company selling the end product since a recall can be costly

[kpowers.nj]

Thank you!!!

[curiouscat]

Sure companies can play games to just meet the standards on paper and hope to bluff an auditor in person but even doing that is likely to raise the standards in that company a bit.  A good auditor will not get taken in by the polish and will look deeper and deeper until they are certain standards are high or not.

Fair enough.

Some ideas:

1. ISO ought to pay more attention to quality auditors. Most I've seen were nowhere as close to what you describe

2. Perhaps audits ought to happen more often

3. Random unannounced auditing? That reduces the gaming aspect @eazyeye talks about.

Fundamentally there's this big conflict of interest deep down: ISO gets paid by the firms it audits. Too strict and it's harder to get customers.

[JGK]

The company I work for has ISO 9001:2008, ISO14001:2004 and ISO18001:2007 so that potential customers of ours know we work to those standard for Quality, Environmental Management and Health & Safety.  To keep our accreditation we are audited by external standards auditors on an annual basis to ensure we continue to maintain good standards.  If we did not have these accreditation's it is likely some customers would choose not to deal with us or would require their own in-house auditors to check us over.

@DrCMS: I agree with most of your well reasoned reply to the OP's rant.

But I've my doubts about the utility of the ISO certification process. I've seen absolutely atrociously run plants (often in third world countries) that boast the ISO certification. When I looked closer, the plant and its processes were in shambles.

Is that just me, or have others noticed this?

As a standards body they do a lot of good, but are their certifications up to par?

It can depend upon the quality of the external auditor. As these are "independent" and tend to work for private companies, the less scrupulous of them may ease of to keep the business so to speak. Companies who get heavily criticised in an audit may go to an alternate provider in order to have an easier ride