International Standards
How to find the CQP in your product
2020/05/27
To find the Critical Quality Point (not the critical control point) in terms of sensory properties of your product should be more and more critical in this era of food safety as food safety is the basic requirement for everybody now. How to find the CQP then? The answer is you can identify the key sensory characteristics (sensory quality points) via consumer tests during the product development. As you know the key sensory characteristics, then you can set up the quality control chart on these sensory characteristics and put them into the quality control system as well by employing scientific sensory analysis method. You can create the scientific data on these quality points in your COA (Certificate of Analysis) of your product, same as what you did from the chemical analyses.
You may confirm the key sensory characteristics through ANOVA on your consumer tests and material effects/process effects. These will be important reference for your system control. Therefore, to confirm your CQP will be similar to what you did for CCP in the food safety control. Critical Quality Point is created by European experts earlier in Geographical Indications (GI) system. One important discriminative index will be the sensory properties (characteristics) to discriminate the product from certain area from the products from other areas.
To find your CQP will need proper sensory analysis methods, qualified sensory staffs and qualified panelists, proper statistic procedures, as well as your quality policy of the company.
