What is H.A.C.C.P.? HACCP stands for “Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points”. It is a food safety management system. It is not the only one but, since its development for the NASA space program in the 1960’s, it has become the global standard and is now used throughout the world to ensure the production of safe food.
HACCP essentially controls the process of
food production. However, there are many environmental issues which affect food safety. These often apply across the board, regardless of what food is being produced or how it is processed. These issues are referred to as “prerequisites”. This means that, in order to ensure food safety, these matters must all Why do HACCP? be addressed alongside the processing hazards. HACCP, as originally devised, is best applied to the production of single food products. It needs modification Examples of prerequisites include: when applied to catering operations, which involve the ▪ Structure, layout, design and production of many different food items at the same time. maintenance of food premises Nevertheless, the principles of HACCP can still be applied to ▪ Cleanliness these situations and the food hygiene regulations now require ▪ Pest Control that all food businesses other than those involved in primary ▪ Personal Hygiene production, utilise the principles of HACCP in their food safety ▪ Training management. The exact wording of the Regulation is shown below.
REGULATION (EC) No 852/2004 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 29
April 2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs
Article 5 - Hazard analysis and critical control points
1. Food business operators shall put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure or procedures based on the HACCP principles.
2. When any modification is made in the product, process, or any step, food business operators shall review the procedure and make the necessary changes to it.
3. [ This Article does not apply to primary production. ]
4. Food business operators shall:
(a) provide the competent authority with evidence of their compliance with paragraph 1 in the manner that the competent authority requires, taking account of the nature and size of the food business; (b) ensure that any documents describing the procedures developed in accordance with this Article are up-to- date at all times; (c) retain any other documents and records for an appropriate period. The 7 Principles of HACCP Principle 1 The Principles Explained Identify any hazards that must be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable levels. Principle 1 – A hazard is anything that can cause harm. The degree of harm it causes will depend on the Principle 2 circumstances and this is what you need to assess. For Identify the critical control points at the step or example – Salmonella is a hazard. One or two Salmonella steps at which control is essential to prevent or probably won’t make anyone ill, but if circumstances allow eliminate a hazard or to reduce it to acceptable them to grow and multiply, then major illness may result. levels. You need to identify all potential hazards involved in your food production chain and then ask the question “What Principle 3 if…?” Establish critical limits at critical control points which separate acceptability from Principal 2 – Some control points are more important than unacceptability for the prevention, elimination or others. A critical control point is one where no further reduction of identified hazards. actions or operations later in the chain would remove or reduce the risk present at this stage. For example – Principle 4 pathogenic bacteria are present in raw meat and will grow Establish and implement effective monitoring at room temperature. Keeping raw meat in the chiller is a procedures at critical control points. useful control point. However, it is not a “critical” control point if the meat is to be cooked, as the cooking process (if Principle 5 done correctly) will kill any bacteria present. The cooking Establish corrective actions when monitoring operation itself is the “critical” control point as, if this is not indicates that a critical control point is not done correctly, some bacteria may survive and cause under control. illness. The idea of identifying “critical” control points is intended to focus your attention on the most important Principle 6 safety controls. Establish procedures, which shall be carried out regularly, to verify that the measures taken are working effectively
Principle 7 Establish documents and records commensurate with the nature and size of the food business to demonstrate the effective application of the measures proposed or taken.
Principle 3 – You must know what your target is
before you can say whether you have reached it or not. It is no good specifying “adequate cooking” as a control point without specifying what temperature must be reached or how long the product must be cooked for. It is no good stating that high-risk foods must be kept in the chiller without specifying what temperature the chiller should run at.
Principal 4 – The monitoring procedures will depend
on the nature of the control. If cooking is the control, then checking the temperature of the cooked food with a probe thermometer to ensure that the critical limits have been met will be appropriate. If the control is adequate handwashing by staff, then simple observation by a supervisor to make sure all staff do wash their hands in the correct manner may be sufficient. Principle 5 – There is no point at all in monitoring the critical control points if you are not going to take action when the monitoring indicates something is wrong. The “corrective action” is the action you must take when the critical limits are not met. For example – if monitoring shows that the chiller temperature is too high, the corrective active action might be to recheck the temperature an hour later and, if it is still too high, to throw the food away and call the refrigeration engineer.
Principle 6 – Formal HACCP protocols talk about “validation” and “verification”. Validation is checking that your completed procedures are actually capable of ensuring safe food. This can be done by sampling and analysis or by making use of controls and standards that have already been well documented and proved to work. Once your “system” has been validated you need to carry out ongoing verification to ensure that staff are actually implementing the controls properly on a regular basis.
Principle 7 – You have to be able to prove that your food operation is fully under control and will produce safe food. This is partly to satisfy the enforcing authority (see Article 5 – 4(a) above) but also to support any claims you may need to make in respect of a “due diligence” defence. Without adequate documentation you will find it very difficult to prove, in court, that you are producing a safe product.
How do I start? Start by making a flow chart of your food
production operation. Don’t forget to include every stage. The diagram below shows a flow chart for a typical catering Purchasing operation but you may have different stages. Some stages may occur more than once.
Delivery
Refrigerated Storage Ambient Storage
Preparation
Cooking
Cooling Hot Holding
Refrigerated Storage
Serving
Then identify all potential hazards at each stage and what action you are going to take to control them. Identify which of these are “critical control points” and make sure you have established critical limits, means of monitoring, and corrective actions for these points. The diagram on the next page shows how you can set out your completed plan. The HACCP Plan Stage Hazard Control C.C.P.? Monitoring Critical Limit Corrective Action Documentation
1. Purchasing Contaminated raw Purchase only from Maintain
materials vetted reputable approved supplier suppliers list. 2. Delivery (a) Foreign Visual check of all Yes Visual check to No foreign bodies. Reject delivery. Check-in or bodies goods on delivery. expected standard. Adequate quality. rejects book. All goods with adequate (a) Warm Check temperature Yes for Check automated remaining shelf-life. Reject delivery transport of refrigerated RTE vehicle temperature Check-in or allowing goods on arrival food log or check arrival Chilled food <5°C rejects book. growth of and place straight temperature yourself. Frozen food <-18°C bacteria into storage. Ice cream <-29°C 3. Refrigerated Growth of micro- Put perishable food Check temperature of Chilled food <5°C Check again 1 hour Temperature log storage organisms. into refrigeration all refrigeration units Frozen food <-18°C later. If temperature for all units. immediately on first thing in the still high, adjust delivery and keep morning and again in thermostat or call there until needed the afternoon using a engineer. for preparation probe thermometer. Cross contamination Raw food stored Reject RTE food Keep raw and RTE Manager to check above or within 1 unless it can be foods in separate daily. metre of RTE food. further cooked. units.
Keep all foods well
wrapped in storage.
5. Preparation Cross contamination Ensure raw and
RTE foods are Visual checks by Retraining of staff handled and manager. prepared in different areas with different equipment. Sanitise all equipment after use. Ensure good personal hygiene/hand washing 6. Cooking Survival of bacteria Ensure all food is Yes Temperature probe all > 75°C in the Continue cooking Cooking due to under cooking cooked thoroughly. large items and a thickest part of the until this temperature log. representative sample item. temperature is of smaller items. reached
This is a part example only. Each business must prepare its own plan related TRAINING specifically to what they actually do. It should be used as a working document as you will be expected to provide evidence that you are actually doing what you say “Food business operators you should be doing. If you are producing several different foods, other than in a are to ensure:…… those that catering situation, you will need to prepare a separate HACCP plan for each item or responsible for the closely related group of items, for example –sausages, meat pies, cooked meats. development and maintenance of the All relevant staff should be trained on your HACCP Plan, monitoring procedures procedure referred to in and recording. The manager may normally do all this but when he is on holiday or Article 5(1) of this off sick, someone else will need to take over. You can’t just suspend normal Regulation or for the procedures until he is back. operation of relevant guides have received adequate Don’t forget to review and if necessary amend your plan at regular intervals and training in the application of whenever there is any significant change in procedures or products produced. It the HACCP principles;” helps if the master copy is kept on a computer so that alterations can easily be made without having to rewrite the whole plan.
Further Information
Guidelines for Food Safety Control in European Restaurants
A Simple Guide to Understanding and Applying the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Concept http://www.ilsi.org/Europe/Publications/C2004Simp_GuiEng.pdf
