HACCP Software

What is HACCP?

HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) is the main way that almost all Countries in the world use to ensure safer food from our food producing factories and, since 2006, our restaurants, pubs, hotels and other catering businesses. Yet, ignorance prevails throughout the UK and the world on what HACCP Training is really all about. Even our auditing and inspection organizations have widely different views as to what how it is to be implemented.

HACCP is based on seven principles which effectively state that for any food preparation process we should firstly map out a process flow diagram of the steps involved in making the food. Then, for each process step, we look carefully at the things that could go wrong that might result in the consumer becoming ill or being injured, e.g. the growth of harmful bacteria in the food due to the temperature being too high. At this stage we then do some risk analysis to assess if the risk is significant or not and if it is we then identify a control measure for the hazard. Having identified a significant hazard we now proceed to implement a control measure and then decide if the hazard is a CCP (Critical Control Point) or not.

A CCP is basically a hazard that if NOT CONTROLLED would make people ill or cause them injury. If we identify the hazard as a CCP then we must set critical limits, e.g. Temperature 1-5oC along with a monitoring procedure and corrective action to be implemented if the critical limits are breached.

So if we look at it HACCP is a logical process that takes us through the process of:

1. Identification of hazards for a given process
2. Decide if each hazard is a significant risk or not
3. If significant implement a means of controlling the hazard
4. Decide if the hazard is critical to food safety
5. Set levels that are safe for the hazard
6. Implement monitoring
7. Decide on what corrective action to take if the levels are breached

HACCP is easy to explain in terms of an everyday task such as driving your car. If you think of the process of driving down the road. A number of hazards may present themselves, it may be wet or icy outside and these mean that the risk of skidding is higher than normal. Therefore the hazard would be 'Crash the car due to icy conditions’. If the road is very icy then the risk would be high and therefore we would want to have a control measure to prevent us crashing. The control measure would be 'Drive slowly and carefully.

BDFoodSafety.com offer's professional HACCP training and certification recognized by International HACCP Alliance. We provide better assistance in getting SQF consulting with registered SQF consultants. Our passion is to help others to produce quality and wholesome food.

Source: Ezine Articles