What is HACCP - Part II

The Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene 

Identify the essential principles of food hygiene applicable throughout the food chain (including primary production through to the final consumer), to achieve the goal of ensuring that food is safe and suitable for human consumption;

Recommend a HACCP-based approach as a means to enhance food safety;

Indicate how to implement those principles; and

Provide guidance for specific codes which may be needed for - sectors of the food chain; processes; or commodities; to amplify the hygiene requirements specific to those areas.

Principles of the HACCP System

The HACCP system consists of the following seven principles:

PRINCIPLE I

Conduct a Hazard Analysis

List the food safety hazards identified in accordance with production process which must be controlled for each process.

PRINCIPLE II

Determine the Critical Control Points (CCPs)

List the critical control points for each of the identified food safety hazards, including, as appropriate: (i) Critical control points designed to control food safety hazards that could be introduced in the establishment, and (ii) Critical control points designed to control food safety hazards introduced outside the establishment, including food safety hazards that occur before, during, and after entry into the establishment;

PRINCIPLE III

Establish Critical Limit(s)

List the critical limits that must be met at each of the critical control points. Critical limits shall, at a minimum, be designed to ensure that applicable targets or performance standards established by standard procedures, and any other requirement set forth in pertaining to the specific process or product, are met;

PRINCIPLE IV

Establish  monitoring procedures

Prepare the procedures, and the frequency with which those procedures will be performed, that will be used to monitor each of the critical control points to ensure compliance with the critical limits;

PRINCIPLE V

Establish Corrective Actions

Include all corrective actions that have been developed in accordance with process requirements of the product manufactured, to be followed in response to any deviation from a critical limit at a critical control point which shows that a particular CCP is not under control.

PRINCIPLE VI

Establish Verification Procedures 

Provide  a record keeping system that documents the monitoring of the critical control points. The records shall contain the actual values and observations obtained during monitoring to confirm that the HACCP system is working effectively.

PRINCIPLE VII

Establish Record Keeping and Documentation Procedures 

Prepare  the verification procedures appropriate to HACCP principles while concerning documentation requirements and the frequency with which those procedures will be performed, that the establishment will use in accordance with process requirements of the product manufactured.

Guidelines for the Implementation of HACCP Systems

Once you decided to establish a HACCP system to any sector of the food chain, that sector should be operating according to the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, while applying the appropriate Codex Codes of Practice, and appropriate food safety legislations according to country of origin or end product destination. Accordingly, Management commitment is the first mandatory requirement for implementation of an effective HACCP system. During hazard identification, evaluation, and subsequent operations in designing and applying HACCP systems, you must consider the impact of raw materials, ingredients, food manufacturing practices, role of manufacturing processes to control hazards, likely end-use of the product, categories of consumers of concern, and epidemiological evidence relative to food safety.

The intent of the HACCP system is to focus control at CCPs. According to the hazard analysis, redesign of the operation shall be considered if a hazard which must be controlled is identified but no CCPs are found. HACCP should be applied to each specific operation separately. CCPs identified in any given example in any Codex Code of Hygienic Practice might not be the only one legislation identified for a specific application or might be of a different nature. The HACCP application should be reviewed and necessary changes made when any modification is made in the product, process, or any other step of manufacturing process. When applying HACCP to a product manufacturing process, it is to be flexible and customizable, where appropriate. It is also important to consider the given context of the application taking into account of the nature and the size of the operation.

(Courtesy: http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y1579e/y1579e03.htm)