If we consider all the work, processes and parties involved in the production of a meal or food, it becomes clear how many opportunities there are to introduce risk. HACCP is a framework designed to address potential risks during the preparation, manufacturing or packaging of food, helping those responsible to identify, control and minimize risks.
As a standardized procedure for risk assessment and control of potential hazards in the kitchen, HACCP is a crucial component of food health and safety. In this article, we’ll find out what HACCP is, explain why it’s an important part of food safety training, and share how to make sure your employees fully understand it, or that you’re properly trained yourself.
What is HACCP?
HACCP is a food hygiene risk assessment framework used to ensure food is safe to eat. It wants to introduce checks and standards during the manufacture or preparation of food to minimize risk, thereby reducing chemical, physical and biological risks to humans.
Small work kitchens where food is manually prepared and delivered to clients to huge factories where goods are mass-produced, HACCP may be implemented into operations in any size environment. It is also useful to know how HACCP is designed, as it can be used at any stage of the food production process.
Potential risks exist where raw food is produced, where it is cooked and mixed, where it is packaged, and where it is stored for sale. HACCP is designed to deal with all of these issues and is a structured approach suitable for most processes.
What are the Main Principles of HACCP?
HACCP is now an international standard (ISO 22000 FSMS 2011) with seven clear principles that must be followed for proper HACCP compliance. To understand the importance of HACCP and its role, it is helpful to understand the basic principles of the procedure.
Conduct a Hazard Analysis
As with most hazard reduction frameworks, the first step in HACCP is to conduct a comprehensive hazard analysis, or risk assessment, of the process you are responsible for. This means looking for any biological, physical or chemical risks that may arise during food production, storage, packaging or any other process.
Are bacteria causing problems? Can foreign substances enter food? Are Allergens Coming in Mislabeled Products? There are many questions to ask at this stage if you want your risk analysis to be thorough and effective.
Identify Critical Control Points
Once the risks are noted and assessed, the exact point in the food manufacturing process where the risk may arise can be determined and eventually brought under control. Anywhere you add a control can serve as a CCP (Critical Control Point).
For example, if you are cooking a piece of meat that must be at a certain temperature to be safe, the CCP is the point at which you determine that the product is safe to cook and to consumers. Ready to serve.
Establish Critical Limits
For each critical control point established, it must be determined what exactly the critical limit is and how the risk will be controlled. A critical limit is a value or state at which a hazard exists or a risk is controlled, providing a clear understanding of whether the controls are functioning.
If we go back to the example of cooking a piece of meat, the risk is that the undercooked food may contain harmful bacteria, which means that the meat must reach a certain temperature to kill these bacteria. Establishing critical limits means determining the exact temperature that meat must reach in order to be safe to eat without the risk of harmful bacteria.
Establish CCP Monitoring Requirements
The way China is monitored is really important, and in some cases, much trickier than others. In our example, using an appropriate thermometer and reading method will ensure that the food is cooked to the correct temperature.
However, monitoring can be more complex, for example in food production facilities, where high-tech solutions are used to determine whether foreign objects have entered the food and whether they have reached or exceeded critical limits.
Identifying your critical limits makes it easier to determine monitoring requirements in some cases – if your limit is a temperature value, then you must monitor it with a thermometer. But other control points may need to be monitored by adding additional processes to existing systems or by selecting employees to keep records.
Establish Corrective Actions
If monitoring reveals that critical limits for CCPs have been exceeded, corrective action must be taken to ensure that the hazard does not become a problem. This could mean disposing of any improperly cooked items, withdrawing potentially damaged items from sale, or taking any other steps to prevent dangerous items from being consumed.
Developing corrective actions for each CCP is critical, as if a hazard is identified, you can save time thinking about a solution by having a process in place.
Develop Review Procedures
A good HACCP protocol means reviewing your controls regularly to ensure the risk management approach implemented by the CCP is working as it should.
Likewise, HACCP should not unduly restrict the normal production of food. Are the procedures at a reasonable level?
Establish Record-Keeping Procedures
The final element of HACCP is keeping records of everything that is recorded. Traceability is important to troubleshoot issues that arise later and to aid in the evaluation process.
For instance, a lot of restaurants keep track of all temperatures they monitor, whether they pertain to cooked or chilled food. This helps ensure everything is working properly and provides a backup in case there are future queries.
Why is Food Hygiene Training so important?
Food safety training is important for a variety of roles in many industries. From those directly involved in food production to those who retail food, workers must understand how to safely handle food for human consumption.
If contaminants enter the body, they can cause mild discomfort or even life-threatening illness. The only way to prevent this is to ensure that these contaminants are not easily transferred between food products or between people and food, and are kept as far away from the kitchen environment as possible. Only with the right training can one learn how to do this fundamental task, which is also one of the most crucial HACCP components.
There are different levels of food safety training, with many different elements, often tailored to the relevant role and industry. However, most courses include some training, and HACCP is one of the most important.
Why is HACCP so Important in Food Industry Training?
HACCP is a very important process because foodborne illness and allergic reactions can cause serious health problems. They are often caused by poor hygiene in food preparation areas and processes, and lack of risk management and proper health and safety systems is one of the main reasons for this.
Implementing HACCP-guided processes is one of the best ways to minimize hazards from poor sanitation and cross-contamination in food preparation or manufacturing environments. Food safety training educates employees about the potential consequences of these hazards if left unchecked, and HACCP is an important part of the solution that training provides to help reduce or eliminate these hazards.
Anaphylaxis, especially anaphylactic shock, can be life-threatening and can only be prevented if people know exactly what they are eating. This can only be known by food producers and preparers who can ensure that food is not touched or mixed when it should not be. HACCP training teaches employees how to prevent this from happening, which is why it is so important.
Food health and safety training tends to focus on the best ways to keep your job safe and keep those you come in contact with safe. Risk assessment is one of the most successful methods and HACCP is a trusted method of risk assessment to help properly control hazards present in the food industry. Another reason for the significance of HACCP in food safety education is this. It provides a reliable and standardized framework for risk assessment.
In addition to being an important part of keeping employees and customers safe, HACCP is also important in food safety training because it helps food businesses comply with government health and safety guidance and regulations. Article 5 of EC852/2004 states that it is a legal requirement for food businesses to implement and maintain a food safety and hazard control system based on HACCP principles, and any business found to be ignoring this is breaking the law and may face severe penalties and penalties. result.
Finally, systems such as HACCP included in food safety training create high standards for health and safety in the food business. This ensures that all businesses are held to the same standards and follow approved systems to manage risk. It also allows consumers to feel safe when buying food, knowing that suppliers will have stringent controls in place to ensure any health risks are minimized or eliminated.
Summary
The importance of HACCP in food safety really depends on the usefulness of following a standardized process in identifying and controlling potential hazards. HACCP ensures that critical control points are implemented and monitored in all food establishments so that risks are well controlled, not every establishment follows a different process resulting in different food quality.
HACCP is taught in many different food safety and hygiene courses, and virtually all good food hygiene courses should include it to some extent. Therefore, there is no better way to fully understand how HACCP works, what it does, and how to implement it than to do it the right way.
FAQs
What does HACCP stand for in food safety?
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It refers to the process used for food health and safety to analyze potential risks in the preparation of food and implement control measures to monitor, reduce or eliminate those risks.
Who needs a HACCP food safety system?
According to UK government guidance, every food business is required to use a HACCP food safety system.
What is the purpose of a HACCP food safety plan?
A HACCP food safety plan uses a system to identify potential hazards in food preparation, decide how to control those hazards, and then regularly monitor hazards and identify any hazards early and effectively deal with them. It protects both consumers and the businesses that supply food by preventing biological, chemical or physical contamination that would render food unsafe to eat.
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