HACCP standards

General HACCP Standard

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a systematic, preventive approach to food safety that identifies, evaluates, and controls biological, chemical, and physical hazards throughout the production process that could make the finished product unsafe. Rather than relying on end-product inspection, HACCP focuses on preventing hazards by designing and implementing control measures to reduce risks to safe levels. The HACCP system can be applied at every stage of the food chain, from raw material production and processing to packaging, distribution, and pest management.

HACCP Principles

  1. Conduct a hazard analysis
    Plans determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive measures the plan can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.
  2. Identify critical control points
    A critical control point (CCP) is a point, step, or procedure in a food manufacturing process at which control can be applied and, as a result, a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.
  3. Establish critical limits for each critical control point
    A critical limit is a maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point to prevent, eliminate, or reduce that hazard to an acceptable level.
  4. Establish critical control point monitoring requirements
    Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure that the process is under control at each critical control point. It requires that each monitoring procedure and its frequency be listed in the HACCP plan.
  5. Establish corrective actions
    These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation fr
    om an established critical limit. The final rule requires a plant’s HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product is injurious to health or otherwise adulterated as a result if the deviation enters commerce.
  6. Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended
    Validation ensures that the plants do what they were designed to do; that is, they are successful in ensuring the production of a safe product. Plants will be required to validate their own HACCP plans. FSIS will not approve HACCP plans in advance but will review them for conformance with the final rule.
    Verification ensures the HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities as a review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits, and microbial sampling and analysis. The plan should include verification tasks to be performed by plant personnel. Verification tasks would also be performed by FSIS inspectors. Both FSIS and i
    ndustry will undertake microbial testing as one of several verification activities.
    Verification also includes ‘validation’ – the process of finding evidence for the accuracy of the HACCP system (e.g. scientific evidence for critical limitations).
  7. Establish record-keeping procedures
    The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing deviations. Implementation involves monitoring, verifying, and validating of the daily work that is compliant with regulatory requirements in all stages all the time.

HACCP Standards

The seven HACCP principles are included in the international standard ISO 22000 FSMS 2005. This standard is complete food safety and quality management system incorporating the elements of prerequisite programs (GMP & SSOP), HACCP, and the quality management system, which together form an organization’s Total Quality Management system.

[source: wikipedia]

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HACCP rules used in pest control

Pest control plays an important part in food safety. Troublesome insects such as cockroaches and flies can spread food-borne diseases by contaminating food at any stage of production. Rodents also spread diseases as well as causing damage to buildings, fixtures, and machinery. Stored product insects can damage and contaminate food during transport and storage.

Investing in pest control monitoring and detection helps prevent pests from entering a food processing establishment, thus assisting in the compliance of food safety.  This includes respecting, among others, these rules:

Insecticides in HACCP pest management

– non-toxic or low toxicity products in kitchen and production area
– no spraying of insecticides
– avoid any thermal fogging which are harmful to health
– availability of the safety data of all the products used

Baits and bait stations for rodent control

– ensure proper protection of the bait in a dedicated bait station for rodents
– clear signalization of the bait stations
– at least monthly checking of the consumption and report
– clear location of all the bait stations on a bait map
– non-dispersive baits

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