Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

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Food Control
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Serbian meat industry: A survey on food safety management systems

implementation



Igor Toma
sevi
c a, *, Nada Smigi
c a, Ilija eki
c a, Vlade Zari
c b, Nikola Tomi
c a, Andreja Rajkovic a
a
b

Food Safety and Quality Management Department, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Nemanjina 6, 11080 5 Belgrade, Serbia
Department of Agroeconomy, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Nemanjina 6, 11080 5 Belgrade, Serbia

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 27 September 2012
Received in revised form
19 November 2012
Accepted 27 November 2012

This paper reports incentives, costs, difculties and benets of food safety management systems
implementation in the Serbian meat industry. The survey involved 77 producers out of which 93.5%
claimed that they had a fully operational and certied HACCP system in place, while 6.5% implemented
HACCP, but they had no third party certication. ISO 22000 was implemented and certied in 9.1% of the
companies, while only 1.3% had implemented and certied IFS standard. The most important incentive
for implementing food safety management systems for Serbian meat producers was to increase and
improve safety and quality of meat products. Investment in the new equipment, civil work in the plant
including redesign of production facilitates were the costs related to the initial set-up with the greatest
importance. The results indicated that the major difculty encountered during HACCP implementation
and operation was associated with the nance, namely the fact that companies were not able to recoup
costs related to the implementation/operation of HACCP system. The most important identied benet
was increased safety of food products with mean rank scores 6.45. The increased quality of food products
and working discipline of staff employed in food processing were also found as important benets of
implementing/operating HACCP in Serbian meat industry. The study shows that the level of HACCP, as
standalone food safety system or incorporated in part to ISO 22000, implementation is high and its
benets to the meat industry in Serbia are widespread and signicant.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Food safety management
HACCP
Meat industry
Incentives
Costs
Difculties
Benets

1. Introduction
Several trends are bringing greater attention to food safety
regulation in many countries. Science is identifying new foodborne
pathogens and understanding their potential for serious consequences. Demand for safer food is growing as consumers now
better understand the links between diet and health. The proportion of food obtained from food services is increasing, even in
middle income countries, and this reduces consumer control over
food handling and preparation. These trends converge to create
both public and private demand for greater food safety. At the same
time, governments everywhere are trying to make more efcient
use of public resources.
Serbia ofcially applied for European Union membership on 22
December 2009. The European Commission recommended making
it an ofcial candidate on 12th October 2011. Even with candidate
status, it is likely that Serbia will have to wait for a starting date for

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 381 653183309.

E-mail address: tbigor@agrif.bg.ac.rs (I. Toma
sevi
c).
0956-7135/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2012.11.046

negotiations with the European Commission in order to bring its

laws in line with union laws, a process that can take some time.
Ensuring full safety of food in compliance with international
standards is of crucial importance for the industry and consumers,
because of the economic but before all the public health aspects. It
is a signicant element of measures taken in food sector as a part of
Serbias overall efforts to join the EU structures. One of the tools to
ensure safety of food in Serbian food production companies is
obligation to implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point
(HACCP), including required pre-requisite programs that depend on
the segment of the food chain in which the organization operates
and the type of organization.
In Serbia the obligatory application of the system was rstly
introduced by virtue of the Veterinary Law (Anon, 2005) which
obligated all the animal origin food producers, regardless of their
size, to: adopt and implement food safety management system
based on the principles of Good Hygiene and Good Manufacturing
Practices and the system of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control
Points principles (HACCP program) (article 82). For all HACCP
implementation activities a deadline was set for January 1st 2009
(article 170).

I. Toma
sevic et al. / Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

26

Few years ago, it was almost evident that all of us, legislators,
inspection, food safety experts, food industry itself were not able to
accept HACCP without wandering, interference of the politics and
attempts to do something special and Serbia unique e but in a way
how it was done by the rest of the developed world (Radovanovic,
2006). HACCP system became compulsory for the Serbian food
producers since 2009 when new Food Safety law was adopted
(Ofcial Gazette of Republic of Serbia, No. 41/09) and today it
should be in place in all food establishments. Little information
exists regarding motives and costs, difculties and benets of
HACCP implementation or any other food safety management
system in Serbian food sector.
With the view to the approaching date of Serbias accession to
the EU a survey was carried out to check how far the activities
related to practical implementation of HACCP and other food safety
management systems have been advanced in Serbian meat
industry establishments. This paper is devoted to the survey.
2. Material and methods
The survey was conducted from June 2011 till September 2011
involving 77 producers of meat products in Serbia on voluntary
bases. Based on the available literature (Henson, Holt, & Northen,
1999; Herath & Henson, 2010; Maldonado et al., 2005), a questionnaire of 11 questions was developed to identify the effects of HACCP
implementation in Serbian meat industry which included the issues
regarding general information about the food business operators
(such as the number of employees, status of HACCP system, the
information about the educational level, age, work experience and
number of HACCP team members). Questions related to prerequisite programs that are implemented in the company were
also included. Further questions were related to the incentives for
implementing HACCP system, costs, benets and difculties in
implementation/operation of HACCP system, time necessary for
HACCP implementation, food safety management system certication. All producers have been visited and on-site interviews have
been performed. Respondents were mainly HACCP team leaders,
production managers or owners. The respondents ranked these
factors in order of importance according to their own conditions and
experiences. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS e
Release 12.0.0) was used for the data analysis.
3. Results and discussion
The size of the companies that responded to the survey classied by the number of employees (Table 1) was as followed: 19.5% of
the companies employ less than 10 people, 35.0% employ between
11 and 50, 32.5% employ between 51 and 250 and only 13% of the
companies employ more than 250 employees. According to the
enterprise size class breakdown dened by the European
Commission (Eurostat), 87% of the companies surveyed were micro,
small and medium enterprises, while only 13% of them can be
regarded as large ones. From 77 companies that responded to the
survey, 72 companies (93.5% of the sample) claimed that they had
a fully operational and certied HACCP system in place, while 5
companies (6.5% of the sample) implemented HACCP, but they had

Table 1
Number of survey respondents by number of employees (n 77).
Number of employees

Number (%)

Less 10
11e50
51e250
Above 251

15
27
25
10

(19.5%)
(35.0%)
(32.5%)
(13.0%)

Table 2
Status of HACCP system and other food safety management systems for companies
responding the survey (n 77).
Status

Number (%)

Fully operational and certied HACCP system

Operational HACCP system without certication
Fully operational and certied ISO 22000 standard
Fully operational and certied IFS standard

72 (93.5%)
5 (6.5%)
7 (9.1%)a
1 (1.3%)b

a
b

Companies having both HACCP and ISO 22000.

Companies having both HACCP and IFS.

no third party certication at the time the survey was conducted. In

addition to HACCP system, 7 companies (9.1% of the sample)
implemented and certied food safety management system ISO
22000, whereas only one company (1.3% of the sample) had
implemented and certied IFS standard (Table 2). Nowadays, The
ISO 22000 international standard species the requirements for
a food safety management system that involves interactive
communication, quality management system, pre-requisite
programs and the HACCP principles (Gaaloul, Riabi, & Ghorbel,
2011). The practice of ISO 22000 in Serbian meat industry has not
yet created global leadership like it has done for the Australian
meat industry (Khatri & Collins, 2007).
Our survey showed that all surveyed companies implemented
HACCP whilst similar survey in Poland at the time of being
a candidate country to the European Union, conrmed only 55% of
meat and poultry companies claimed to have HACCP and as much
as 9% of them claimed that will not going to implement it ever, back
in 2003 (Konecka-Matyjek, Turlejska, Pelmer, & Szponar, 2005). The
Mexican meat industry in 19.6% of the surveyed plants showed no
interest in implementing HACCP (Maldonado et al., 2005). In Spain
HACCP system implementation is mandatory since the early 1990s
and yet the study investigating Madrids autonomous community
meat sector HACCP implementation revealed poor HACCP system
complying with the ofcial requirements and 27.5% of meat businesses without its implementation (Celaya et al., 2007). The presence of HACCP throughout the Chinese meat industry is also
moderately low (50%) (Jin, Zhou, & Ye, 2008) and is in sharp
contrast to the ndings of our survey.
Of the 77 surveyed Serbian meat enterprises that have HACCP in
full operation, 28 (36.3%) have adopted ISO 9000 quality management standards which is more compared to 6.5% of the surveyed
Mexican meat enterprises (Maldonado et al., 2005), almost equal to
33% of Turkish (Bas, Yuksel, & Cavusoglu, 2007) but signicantly
less than 88.9% of the Chinese food producers (Bai, Ma, Yang, Zhao,
& Gong, 2007). All of the Serbian meat enterprises responded that
they had rst adopted ISO 9000 and then moved to the implementation of HACCP because they found this to be easier way to get
full operation of the HACCP system in their plants.
The respondents were asked to indicate how long it took from
their starting to implement HACCP system to fully operating one
(Table 3). Almost 50% of the Serbian meat industry sample estimated that it had taken 12 months or less to implement HACCP
system, while only 11.7% estimated that it took more than that. This

Table 3
Time that survey respondents needed for the implementation of HACCP
systems (n 77).
Time for implementation of HACCP systems

Number (%)

Less 3 months
3e6 months
6e12 months
Over 12 months
No answer

2 (2.6%)
16 (20.8%)
20 (26%)
9 (11.7%)
30 (39%)

I. Toma
sevic et al. / Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

is very similar to the situation in China where 77.8% of respondents

indicated that the whole process took 6e12 months (Bai et al.,
2007) and in Australian meat industry where the time for HACCP
implementation varied between 6e12 months, also (Khatri &
Collins, 2007). In Spain research has identied that food industries consumed a much longer time to implement an HACCP
system. In fact, it took more than 3 years in 15 of 19 food industries
(78.9%) (Celaya et al., 2007).
Demographic information related to characteristics of HACCP
team members for meat producers is presented in Table 4. The
majority of companies have less than 5 people in HACCP team
(61.0% of the sample), while only 13.0% had more than 10
employees in HACCP team. Most of the HACCP team members had
college or university education (59.3% of the sample), while only
2.5% of the sample had solely primary education. Regarding the age,
majority of HACCP team members are between 30 and 50 years old
(75.8% of the sample), with 49.5% having between 5 and 15 years of
experience and 24.2% having between 15 and 25 years of experience in food sector. The predominant professions among HACCP
team members were food technologists (26.5% of the sample),
followed by economists (13.1% of the sample) and veterinarians
(12.2% of the sample). Other, such as chemists, managers and civil
engineers are represented with 13.1% of all professions (Table 4).
3.1. Incentives of implementing HACCP in Serbian meat industry
The respondents were asked to rank incentives for implementing HACCP system in their company in order of importance,
using seven-point scale ranging from very important (rank 7) to
unimportant (rank 1). The obtained results were presented with
the mean score for each rank (Table 5) and they indicated that the
most important motives for implementing HACCP system for
Serbian meat producers were to increase and improve safety and
quality of meat products which was similar to Chinese meat
enterprises which had already adopted the HACCP system (Jin et al.,

Table 4
The structure of HACCP team in companies that responded to the survey.
The educational level, age and years of work experience are related to the
total number of HACCP team members (n 442) in companies responded
to survey (n 77).

Table 5
Mean rank scores of incentives implementing HACCP system (n 77).
Incentives

Mean scoresa

Increase product safety

Comply with regulatory requirement
Increase product quality
Marketing
Comply with customer requirement
Access to new market (export)
Reduce production cost

6.56
6.06a
6.05a
5.54
5.10b
4.97b
4.62b

Note: items denoted with the same letter are not signicantly different at the level
of 5% based on Wilcoxon signed rank test.
a
7 e very important and 1 e not important.

2008). The same was found across all sub-sectors of the Indian food
companies, where Improve Product Quality received the highest
rank of all reasons for which rms were ready to adopt HACCP
(Deodhar, 2003). Serbian meat safety managers also wanted to
comply and meet regulatory requirements (rank 6.06) indicated in
the new Food Safety Law (Anon, 2009) which is in contrast with
Chinese food producers whose rank for the same incentive (comply
with regulatory requirements) was only 1.92 (Bai et al., 2007).
Incentive to comply with costumer requirements was highly
ranked by Serbian meat producer (5.1) while it was almost totally
unimportant to Chinese food producers, ranked only 1.17 (Bai et al.,
2007). Market oriented incentives for HACCP implementation were
not of major importance for Serbian meat producers, as was reported for Chinese food producers, whose main reason for implementation of HACCP system was to assess the new export markets
and to increase market share, mainly those in America, Japan and
European Union (Bai et al., 2007). The least important incentive for
HACCP implementation in Serbian meat industry was the reduction
of production costs (mean rank score 4.62). Possibly the most
extreme views regarding this matter were the ones from Turkish
business sector where 20% of the food safety managers saw no real
incentive for having an HACCP while 37.4% were not sure about any
of them (Bas et al., 2007).
3.2. Costs of implementing and operating HACCP in Serbian meat
industry

11 (2.5%)
169 (38.2%)
58 (13.1%)
204 (46.2%)

The respondents were presented with different costs related to

the implementation/operation of HACCP system in their companies. They were asked to rank the individual cost in order of
importance in the overall cost of implementing/operating HACCP
system in their own company, using seven-point scale ranging from
very important (rank 7) to unimportant (rank 1). The obtained
results were presented with the mean score for each rank (Table 6).
Considering the obtained results, investment in the new equipment, civil work in the plant including redesign of production

51 (11.5%)
335 (75.8%)
56 (12.7%)

Table 6
Mean rank scores for the importance of different costs of implementing/operating
HACCP in Serbian meat industry (n 77).

Number (%)
Number of HACCP team (n 77)
Less than 5
Between 5 and 10
More than 10
Educational level (n 442)
Primary school
Secondary school
College
University
Age (n 442)
30 years or younger
Between 31 and 50 years
Older than 51 years
Years of work experience (n 442)
Less than 5 years
Between 5 and 15 years
Between 15 and 25 years
More than 25 years
Profession (n 442)
Food technologist
Veterinarian
Chemist
Civil engineers
Economists
Managers
Other

27

47 (61.0%)
20 (26.0%)
10 (13.0%)

79 (17.9%)
219 (49.5%)
107 (24.2%)
37 (8.4%)
117 (26.5%)
54 (12.2%)
14 (3.2%)
18 (4.1%)
58 (13.1%)
26 (5.9%)
155 (35.1%)

Cost

Mean scoresa

Investment in new equipment

Civil works in the plant
External consultants
Product investigation/analysis
Staff training
Staff time in documenting system
System documentation
Structural changes to plant

5.99a
5.76a
5.39b
5.38b
4.99c
4.84c
4.77c
4.59c

Note: items denoted with the same letter are not signicantly different at the level
of 5% based on Wilcoxon signed rank test.
a
7 e very important and 1 e not important.

28

I. Toma
sevic et al. / Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

facilitates were the costs related to the initial set-up with the
highest mean scores (Table 6). Meat producers in Mexico and
Turkey also found the cost related to the investment in the new
equipment and initial set-up very important (Kok, 2009;
Maldonado et al., 2005). However, the study conducted in the UK
dairy processing industry indicated that the cost of investment was
not important for 54.5% of the sample (Henson et al., 1999).
Whether the reason for observed variations in major costs is only
the reection of previous status of facilities and equipment used
and initial levels of hygiene and sanitation conditions is not known.
It is possible that the UK dairy processing plants were using
modern and sophisticated enclosed and appropriately designed
system for milk processing even before the HACCP system was
implemented, while Mexican, Turkish and Serbian meat producers
had to invest in new equipment and civil work in the plant in order
to satisfy strict requirements (hygiene and sanitation design) for
pre-requisite programs and HACCP implementation. The other
possible explanation can be related to stricter state control in UK in
this sector, which resulted in lower additional costs for prerequisite programs and HACCP implementation, which was not
the situation in Mexico, Turkey or Serbia.
When asked about the source of assistance they had for the
development and the implementation of the HACCP system, the
great majority of respondents replied that they sought help from
external consultants, similar to the ndings from Cyprus for
example (Violaris, Bridges, & Bridges, 2008). On the other hand,
only one small rm had hired a consultant to develop the HACCP
system in Australia (Khatri & Collins, 2007). Therefore, it is not
surprising that the cost of hiring external consultant in Serbian
meat industry was rated as the third most important. There are
cases where more than 60 per cent of all food rms considered
External Consultants cost as a major cost item, like in India
(Deodhar, 2003).
Following these, Serbian meat producers rated the producttesting cost (concerning both microbiological and chemical analysis) with the mean rank score of 5.38. It is likely that this cost is
more related to the operational HACCP, than to the initial HACCP
implementation. According to the results obtained for Mexican
meat producers, the cost associated with product testing was of
major importance for HACCP operation (Maldonado et al., 2005). As
expected, the least importance was given to the cost related to the
system documentation and structural changed in the plant
(Table 6) and these costs are mainly connected with HACCP
implementation.
3.3. Difculties of implementing and operating HACCP in Serbian
meat industry
Respondents were asked to indicate the importance of each
difculty faced in implementing/operating HACCP system on
a seven-point scale from very important (rank 7) to unimportant
(rank 1). The results indicated that the major difculty encountered
during HACCP implementation and operation was associated with
the nance, namely the fact that companies were not able to recoup
costs related to the implementation/operation of HACCP system
(Table 7). The same was found across the Canada meat industry
sample as a whole, where the most important barriers to HACCP
implementation were associated with nance, namely, internal
budgetary constraints and problems obtaining external funding
(Herath & Henson, 2010). It is surprising that the same was not
observed in Mexican meat while it could have been expected for UK
food industry (Henson et al., 1999; Maldonado et al., 2005).
Education and trainings of employees are very important for the
successful implementation of HACCP system in food processing
company. An understanding of HACCP and the related pre-requisite

Table 7
Mean rank scores for difculties faced when implementing/operating HACCP in
Serbian meat industry (n 77).
Factor

Mean
scorea

Recouping costs of implementing HACCP

Need to retrain supervisory/managerial staff
Need to retrain production staff
Reduced staff time available for other tasks
Attitude/motivation of supervisory/managerial staff
Attitude/motivation of production staff
Reduced staff time to introduce new products
Lack of support of inspection service/governmental institutions
Lack of pre-requisite programs/good hygienic or manufacturing
practice

5.34a
5.01a,b
5.00a,b,c
4.92b,c,d
4.91b,c,d,e
4.84b,c,d,e,f
4.49e,f,g
4.35e,f,g,h
4.08h

Note: items denoted with the same letter are not signicantly different at the level
of 5% based on Wilcoxon signed rank test.
a
7 e very important and 1 e not important.

programs must be established to make HACCP successful. This

includes breaking old habits and learning new rules and behaviors
in food production, for both production staff and managers/
supervisors (Panisello & Quantick, 2001). The results from this
study conrm that staff associated difculties are very important
restrains toward HACCP implementation in food companies. The
most important were the need to retrain supervisory/managerial
and production staff (mean rank score 5.01 and 5.00, respectively),
followed by reduced staff time available for other tasks in the
production (4.92). Attitude and motivation was also important,
including both supervisory/managerial personnel (4.91) and staff
directly involved in the food production (4.84). Food producers also
seem to have difculties which are related to the reduced time that
staff can spend to introduce new food products (4.49). Staff related
difculties were also found as restrains of great importance for both
Mexican meat producers and UK dairy producers (Henson et al.,
1999; Maldonado et al., 2005), while the requirement of professional management was one of the major problems for Polish food
sector (Konecka-Matyjek et al., 2005).
There is a big confusion between pre-requisite programs and
HACCP plan, their relations and how they should be managed. The
good example is a case of Spanish catering food handlers whose
majority (54.3%) stated that PRPs are needed for HACCP (Garayoa,
Vitas, Diez-Leturia, & Garcia-Jalon, 2011). It seems to be very difcult to implement an HACCP based system in meat industry, when
a high proportion of employees is not familiar with this reality and
does not participate in PRPs (Gomes-Neves, Cardoso, Araujo, & da
Costa, 2011).
More than 80% of respondents in this survey are using regular
control of pest presence and water purity control, control and
record of temperature, control of health and hygiene of employees
and technical equipment maintenance and calibration (Fig. 1). It is
however important to note that 60% of respondents are using waste
and waste water management and less than 30% of respondents
regularly control air in their processing area and have allergen
declaration. For Serbian meat producers the lack of pre-requisite
programs and/or good hygiene practices in the processing plants
was perceived as difculty of minor importance in the implementation/operation HACCP system (Table 7). The same was reported in food sectors of UK and Spain (Domenech, Amoros, PerezGonzalvo, & Escriche, 2011; Walker, Pritchard, & Forsythe, 2003).
On the contrary, only 29.6% of the food managers in Turkey indicated that they had written standard operating procedures for
cleaning and disinfection equipment and facilities (Bas, Ersun, &
Kivanc, 2006). The vast majority (96.1%) of surveyed meat operators in Serbia have cleaning and sanitation procedures in place
which is more than 85.7% of the Chinese pork meat producers with

I. Toma
sevic et al. / Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

100
90
80

Percentage

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1

10

11

12

Fig. 1. The percentage of surveys respondents using pre-requisite programs (n 77).

Legend: 1 e pest control, 2 e water control; 3 e air control; 4 e internal control of raw
material; 5 e cleaning and sanitation; 6 e temperature control and record; 7 e control
of health and hygiene of employees; 8 e waste and waste water management; 9 e
production layout; 10 e technical equipment maintenance and calibration; 11 e
Traceability; 12 e allergen declaration. Respondents could choose more than one
answer.

detailed hygienic management system and operation norms (Wang

et al., 2010) but less than 100% of the Polish meat and poultry
facilities with washing and disinfection procedures (KoneckaMatyjek et al., 2005). Spanish survey revealed that 48 food industries (71.7%) also applied a suitable level of good hygiene practices
without major non-compliances (Celaya et al., 2007) while another
research claimed that Hygiene & Cleaning was the second most
frequent non-conformity detected in the majority of the Spanish
food companies, regardless of size (Domenech et al., 2011). Bas et al.
(2007) also reported that the lack of pre-requisite programs was
the major barriers for HACCP implementation in food businesses in
Turkey.
3.4. Benets of implementing and operating HACCP in Serbian meat
industry
The respondents were asked to indicate the importance of each
benets of implementing/operating HACCP system observed on
a seven-point scale from very important (rank 7) to unimportant
(rank 1). The benets perceived by Serbian meat producers are
presented in Table 8. The most important identied benet was
increased safety of food products with mean rank scores 6.45. The
increased quality of food products and working discipline of staff
employed in food processing were also found as important benets
of implementing/operating HACCP in Serbian meat industry.
Ranked in the middle in terms of benets were increased product

Table 8
Mean rank scores for benets of implementing/operating HACCP in Serbian meat
industry (n 77).
Factor

Mean scorea

Increased safety of the products

Increased quality of the products
Increased working discipline of staff
Increased customer condence
Legal instrument against complains
Increased product shelf-life
Increased ability to access new overseas markets
Increased product sales
Increased product prices
Reduced production costs

6.45
5.81a
5.72a,b
5.57a,b,c
5.45b,c,d
5.31b,c,d,e
5.15e
4.65f
4.42f
3.84

Note: items denoted with the same letter are not signicantly different at the level
of 5% based on Wilcoxon signed rank test.
a
7 e very important and 1 e not important.

29

sales and customer condence, as well as legal instrument against

complains and prolonged shelf life of meat products. The benets
more related to the clientele, such as the ability to attract new
customers, increased product sales and product prices, and reduced
production costs were ranked as the least important. Results obtained in this study are in agreement with Maldonado et al. (2005),
Kok (2009) and Konecka-Matyjek et al. (2005) indicating that the
meat producers found HACCP system implementation/operation
more benecial for product safety than for customer assurance. All
of the Australian meat producing rms reported no reduction in
costs while some suggested that too much was being asked of
them, the system was overkill and was at times impractical
(Khatri & Collins, 2007) like it was the case in our survey.
4. Conclusion
It is already afrmed that the European Union, the United
States and Australia have mandatory programs to encourage the
adoption of the HACCP system. Although it was reported before
that HACCP system implementation was a burden for food enterprises, especially in developing countries like Serbia, its government executed mandatory HACCP implementation throughout
food industry.
This study provides one of the rst rigorous assessments of the
costs and benets associated with the implementation of food
safety management systems in the Serbian meat industry. Whilst
these results reect the particular characteristics of the Serbian
meat processing sector, they do however provide some indication
of the incentives, costs and benets of HACCP implementation by
food processing enterprises in general.
In practice, it is generally recognized that the application of the
HACCP system is making headway in large food companies, while
in small businesses nds important problems. This could have been
a handicap for improving Serbian meat safety because small
companies are the most numerous. From this study, it is apparent
that regulation is a very important incentive for food safety system
implementation and the degree of enforcements can cause even
the smallest of enterprises to comply without question, like it was
the case with 100% meat producers in our survey. Other major
incentive for the implementation of HACCP was increase in product
safety and quality.
The major costs of implementing HACCP were associated with
investment in new equipment while the major difculties experienced in implementing HACCP were associated with its recouping
costs. It is obvious that most of the costs involved with HACCP could
not be recouped in the short term. However these costs and
investments should be seen in the long term as the return of the
investment by decrease of contaminated food products, improvement in the area of food safety and quality, increase in reliability
and fewer complaints from consumers.
The benets to the meat industry in Serbia from HACCP as
standalone food safety system or incorporated in part to ISO 22000
have been widespread and signicant. In particular, Serbian meat
rms reported increased safety and quality of the products.
However, whilst this study provides some indication of the
costs, benets and difculties potentially involved, it is clear that
further research, that will encompass other parts of Serbian food
sector, is required.
Acknowledgments
This work was performed within the National Project number
TR31034, supported by the Ministry of the Education and Science,
Republic of Serbia.

30

I. Toma
sevic et al. / Food Control 32 (2013) 25e30

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