Is Having a HACCP Plan a Voluntary Process or is it Mandatory?
HACCP Plan Basics
Do you ever wonder how a restaurant or food manufacturer keeps food safe to eat for their customers? They keep food safe because they follow a customized HACCP plan.
Does the government mandate that a food business follow a HACCP plan? Or is a HACCP plan a voluntary process?
Having a HACCP plan is a voluntary process, but many grocers, food retailers and large companies require you to have a HACCP plan when selling your food products or ingredients to them. If you are pressing juice, processing seafood, or dairy products the FDA requires a HACCP plan, and if you are processing meat the USDA requires a HACCP plan.
How to Conduct a Hazard Analysis
HACCP is a system to identify, evaluate, and control food safety hazards based on Seven Core Principles. Here is a summary of the seven principles:
Develop a list of the hazards-
(Defined as a chemical, physical agent, or biological substance that could “reasonably” cause at each step of preparing, processing, packaging, or selling a food item physical or bodily harm.)
Determine which hazards need controlling in the processing or preparation of your food product.
List the hazards applicable to your process along with any measures that can lessen, eliminate, or “control” hazards.
Determine the Critical Control Points
A critical control point or CCP is a step at which a control can be applied to lessen or eliminate the potential hazard or hazards to your food production. For example – cooking food to a certain temperature to kill bacteria and pathogens.
Establish Critical Limits
This is establishing maximum and minimum parameters to control the chemical, physical and biological hazards of each CCP. A good example of this is having to cook food until it reaches a certain temperature for a set amount of time to halt bacteria growth.
Establish Monitoring Procedures
Monitoring is a way to track, monitor and verify that the controls are accurately and consistently being followed.
Workers who monitor CCPs are usually those who are associated with the production of the food product.
The assigned monitor must keep a log of the procedures followed and if there were any variations in the critical limits. The log must be dated and signed. foodready.ai has this capability in our food safety app and food safety software for laptop use.
Establish Corrective Actions
Perfection is the goal, but, mistakes happen, so corrective measures should be in place.
Corrective measures should have these elements.
Find and correct the cause of the problem (for example – surfaces not being properly sanitized, so fixing the plan to include proper sanitation).
Determine the “disposition” of the affected product (products exposed to bacteria from dirty surface could have future bacterial growth and could spread foodborne illness).
Record the corrective actions that have taken place (surfaces cleaned and the compromised product has been disposed of properly).
Establish Verification Procedures
Once a HACCP plan has been created, a verification of the HACCP plan by an unbiased food safety professional should be completed to make sure all the hazards are indeed being addressed in the correct fashion.
The FDA has published an appendix of appropriate verification activities. HACCP Principles & Application Guidelines | FDA
Establish Record Keeping and Documentation Procedures
Records that need to be kept for the HACCP plan include and are not limited to:
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- A summary of the hazard analysis and how the hazards were determined and what control measures were used.
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- The HACCP plan itself (which has many complicated elements, procedures, CCPs, corrective actions and monitoring logs, flow charts, decision trees, etc., which must be documented and differs with each HACCP plan)
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- Support documents and validation records
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- Records created when using the plan.
Believe it or not, this is just a short summary of what a HACCP plan is. It can be a very complicated and long process to complete one for your business yourself. It’s a good thing that FoodReady has some premium food safety software to help you write your HACCP plan, or you can hire one of our HACCP plan writers to write one for you.
Determine the Critical Control Points
A critical control point or CCP is a step at which a control can be applied to lessen or eliminate the potential hazard or hazards to your food production. For example – cooking food to a certain temperature to kill bacteria and pathogens.
Establish Critical Limits
This is establishing maximum and minimum parameters to control the chemical, physical and biological hazards of each CCP. A good example of this is having to cook food until it reaches a certain temperature for a set amount of time to halt bacteria growth.
Foodready is a food safety software and consulting company. Our software has a HACCP builder, food traceability, you can create your own checklists to manage your HACCP plan or track other items, ingredients, tasks, or events. With our Enterprise program you will have access to food safety quality assurance professionals who can help you with GFSI, SQF, GMP, SOP, BRC, CGMP, HACCP, FSMA, gap analysis, or prepare for audits like the Costco audit, the Whole Foods audit, Publix audit, Kroger audit, Safeway audit, Meier audit, HEB audit and more.
