Archive for the ‘HACCP’ Category

HACCP stands for the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point and it was established by the FDA as a proactive approach to preventing hazards that could cause food-borne illnesses from the raw materials to the finished products. Effectively HACCP is a systematic approach to the identification, evaluation, and control of food safety hazards.

HACCP involves seven principles

1. Analyze hazards. Potential hazards associated with a food and measures to control those hazards are identified. The hazard could be biological, such as a microbe; chemical, such as a toxin; or physical, such as ground glass or metal fragments.
2. Identify critical control points. These are points in a food’s production–from its raw state through processing and shipping to consumption by the consumer–at which the potential hazard can be controlled or eliminated. Examples are cooking, cooling, packaging, and metal detection.
3. Establish critical limits. For a cooked food, for example, this might include setting the minimum cooking temperature and time required to ensure the elimination of any harmful microbes.
4. Establish monitoring procedures. Such procedures might include determining how and by whom cooking time and temperature should be monitored.
5. Establish corrective actions. These are to be taken when monitoring shows that a critical limit has not been met — for example, reprocessing or disposing of food if the minimum cooking temperature is not met.
6. Establish verification procedures. Such procedures might include things like puting in place testing time-and-temperature recording devices to verify that a cooking unit is working properly.
7. Establish effective recordkeeping to document the HACCP system. This would include records of hazards and their control methods, the monitoring of safety requirements and action taken to correct potential problems.

Each of these principles must be backed by sound scientific knowledge: for example, published microbiological studies on time and temperature factors for controlling foodborne pathogens.

It is the responsibility of retailers to ensure that food safety procedures are followed and they must work with the regulators as a partnership. Food preparation all the way down the line must include follow HACCP principles, but the retailers are the last line between the production and consumers.

The Food Code has stated that implementation of HACCP principles at retail level should be a voluntary effort by industry. If a food safety management system is put in place following HACCP, the volunteers must be properly trained to ensure that the principles are properly adhered to.

Because there are many different types of food retail operations, the guidelines might vary from industry to industry so the HACCP provides for a common-sense approach to identifying and controlling risk factors.

The goal in applying HACCP principles in retail and food service is to have the operator take purposeful actions to ensure safe food. The objective should always be to provide safe, quality food to consumers. The application of the HACCP principles provides one system that can help accomplish that goal.