11. The Delegation of Canada presented the draft code, which had been revised following the recommendations of the last session of the Committee, and in the light of the comments received. In particular, the Scope was clarified; the provisions already covered in the General Principles of Food Hygiene were identified and included by reference only, or retained when necessary; more flexibility was introduced in the selection of refrigeration temperatures; and the use of the hurdles was emphasized. The Committee expressed its appreciation to the Delegation of Canada and to the Drafting Group for their comprehensive work in order to provide a final version of the Code taking into account all comments received. The Committee reviewed the text section by section and made the following amendments.
12. The Committee had an exchange of views on the use of refrigeration temperatures, as some delegations felt that reference to a specific temperature, even as an example, might be interpreted as too prescriptive. The Committee agreed that no numeric value would appear for temperature, with an exception of an example which appears in the Objective, and that reference would be made to "the specified temperature" throughout the text.
13. The Scope was amended to specify more precisely the characteristics of the foods covered by the Code, such as shelf-life and type of processing, and the examples of such foods were retained.
14. The Committee agreed to introduce definitions for "hurdles" and "hurdle technology" as their use represented an essential aspect of the code. The definition of Good Manufacturing Practice was deleted as it was not used in the text of the code.
15. After an extensive exchange of views on the definitions related to packaging, the Committee confirmed that, for the purposes of the code, a container corresponded to primary package and clarified the definition of packaging; the text was amended where necessary to make it consistent with these definitions.
16. The Committee confirmed that the requirements corresponding to the High Risk Areas in each section were essential in certain cases as identified by the HACCP plan to ensure the safety of the products covered by the Code.
17. In sections 5.2.1.2 and 5.2.1.3, it was clarified that the use of the word "monitoring" was justified where it applied to equipment used to control a hazard.
18. In Section 6.2 Cleaning Programmes, HR areas, the wording was amended to make it more general and include all types of cleaning procedure which might cause cross-contamination, such as high-pressure spray cleaning.
19. The Committee agreed to delete Table 1 - Pathogenic Microorganisms, Growth Limits as it was only included for information and it would not be practical to update it in the future for the purpose of the Code.
STATUS OF THE DRAFT CODE OF PRACTICE FOR REFRIGERATED PACKAGED FOODS WITH EXTENDED SHELF-LIFE
20. The Committee agreed to advance the Draft Code to Step 8 for consideration by the 23rd Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (see Appendix III).
