On 30st March 2005 the
company P.I. "Vitaminka" A.D. pronounced the implementation and
sertification of a HACCP system for their industrial food operations
HACCP: A
State-of-the-Art Approach to Food Safety
Traditionally, industry and regulators have depended on spot-checks of
manufacturing conditions and random sampling of final products to ensure
safe food. This approach, however, tends to be reactive, rather than
preventive, and can be less efficient than the new system.
The new
system is known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, or HACCP
(pronounced hassip). Now HACCP is the food safety standard throughout
other areas of the food industry and food products.
HACCP has
been endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences, the Codex Alimentarius
Commission (an international food standard-setting organization), and the
National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods.
What
is HACCP?
HACCP
involves seven principles:
Analyze
hazards. Potential hazards associated with a food and measures to control
those hazards are identified. The hazard could be biological, such as a
microbe; chemical, such as a toxin; or physical, such as ground glass or
metal fragments.
Identify
critical control points. These are points in a food's production--from its
raw state through processing and shipping to consumption by the
consumer--at which the potential hazard can be controlled or eliminated.
Examples are cooking, cooling, packaging, and metal detection.
Establish
preventive measures with critical limits for each control point. For a
cooked food, for example, this might include setting the minimum cooking
temperature and time required to ensure the elimination of any harmful
microbes.
Establish
procedures to monitor the critical control points. Such procedures might
include determining how and by whom cooking time and temperature should be
monitored.
Establish
corrective actions to be taken when monitoring shows that a critical limit
has not been met--for example, reprocessing or disposing of food if the
minimum cooking temperature is not met.
Establish
procedures to verify that the system is working properly--for example,
testing time-and-temperature recording devices to verify that a cooking
unit is working properly.
Establish
effective recordkeeping to document the HACCP system. This would include
records of hazards and their control methods, the monitoring of safety
requirements and action taken to correct potential problems. Each of these
principles must be backed by sound scientific knowledge: for example,
published microbiological studies on time and temperature factors for
controlling foodborne pathogens.
Need
for HACCP
The need
for HACCP is further fueled by the growing trend in international trade
for worldwide equivalence of food products and the Codex Alimentarious
Commission's adoption of HACCP as the international standard for food
safety.
Advantages
HACCP
offers a number of advantages over the current system. Most importantly,
HACCP:
focuses on
identifying and preventing hazards from contaminating food is based on
sound science
permits
more efficient and effective government oversight, primarily because the
recordkeeping allows investigators to see how well a firm is complying
with food safety laws over a period rather than how well it is doing on
any given day
places
responsibility for ensuring food safety appropriately on the food
manufacturer or distributor
helps food
companies compete more effectively in the world market reduces barriers to
international trade. |
Products
