Role and Position of the Modern Quality Assurance Manager

Quality assurance management in the food industry is complex, as it is the total of activities and decisions performed in an organisation to produce and maintain a safe product with the desired quality level against minimal costs (Luning, 2006). It includes: i) quality design, ii) quality control, iii) quality improvement, iv) quality assurance, and v) quality policy and strategy (Luning, 2007, 2009). Hence, it deals not only with all physical aspects of food products and their technological processes, but also with food handlers’ decisions in daily production as well as management’s decisions that impact food safety and quality (Luning, 2007). A proper quality management (i.e. total quality management) have shown to result in a better performance of the food business (Psomas, 2010; Fotopoulos, 2009, 2010)