Level 4  Food Safety

HACCP

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point – an internationally recognized way of managing food safety and protecting consumers from harm.  It is a system that identifies, evaluates and controls hazards and risks at various points in food production and looks at which are significant for the safety of that food.

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Control Measures /Control Points (CPs)

Precautions that are taken to reduce the chance of a hazard occurring (to an acceptable level of risk). 

These measures could include correct storage and stock rotation practices, covering food to prevent physical or biological contamination, training staff on how to clean and disinfect a work surface or ensuring high personal hygiene standards.

 

Critical Control Point (CCP)

A step in the process where it is essential  to apply control to prevent, eliminate or reduce a food hazard to an acceptable/safe level to avoid the risk of causing food poisoning . In the chicken example above it is critical to food safety that the chicken is cooked properly, because getting it wrong at this step could easily make it unsafe to eat. Cooking the chicken properly will make sure that the Salmonella bacteria are killed.  As a result the hazard will be eliminated and the risk reduced to an acceptable level.

 

Critical limit

Borderline between safe/unsafe practices and processes affecting food .  It relates directly to the hazard and is absolute and measurable, NOT variable.  Critical criteria must be established at each critical control point to ensure the safety of the product.

 

Monitoring 

Deals with assessing whether a critical control point is under control and therefore involves constant checking every day to ensure that the critical limit for a particular CCP has not been breached.

 

Corrective action

If a critical limit has been breached the safety of the final product cannot be guaranteed.  Action has to be taken to correct the situation and bring the process back into control, ideally without wasting the product.  The HACCP plan should specify (a) what action should be taken and (b) who is responsible for taking the action.

 

 

Verification

The process of confirming periodically that the whole HACCP system is functioning effectively and just as planned. Verification should also take place whenever there is a change in the process (e.g. when new ingredients or equipment are introduced), or when there is a system failure or new hazards are identified.  The HACCP plan should be amended accordingly.