Personal hygiene: All employees and other persons entering the production facility must comply with personal hygiene requirements. When setting up a food business, it is important to apply the principles of hygienic design and to comply at least with the specific requirements of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on food hygiene. This ensures that food establishments, services and transport are all operated in accordance with good hygiene practices and that food processes operate safely. In addition, most food businesses must be registered, usually with local authorities. The successful implementation of a HACCP plan is facilitated by management`s commitment. The next step is to create a plan that outlines who is responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining the HACCP system. First, the HACCP coordinator and HACCP team are selected and trained if necessary. The team is then responsible for developing the initial plan and coordinating its implementation. Product teams can be appointed to develop HACCP plans for specific products. An important aspect of developing these teams is ensuring that they are properly trained.
Workers who will be responsible for monitoring must be adequately trained. Once the HACCP plan is completed, procedures, forms, and procedures for monitoring and corrective action will be developed by the operator. Often, it is a good idea to develop a schedule for activities associated with the initial implementation of the HACCP plan. The implementation of the HACCP system includes the continuous application of monitoring, registration, corrective actions and other activities described in the HACCP plan. Q. What is HACCP? HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. A food safety management system based on HACCP principles is a systematic approach to identifying and controlling microbiological, chemical or physical hazards that could pose a threat to safe food production – in simple terms, identifying what could go wrong in a food system and planning how to prevent it. Q. Is the HACCP system a legal obligation for all food businesses? Yes. Since 1998, all food companies have been legally required to have a food safety management system based on HACCP principles. Under current law, a “food business” is defined as “food business.” any undertaking, whether public or private, which carries out all or part of the following operations: preparation, processing, manufacture, packaging, storage, transport, distribution, treatment, offering for sale or supply of foodstuffs`. Q.
Is there flexibility in terms of HACCP compliance? Yes, there is some flexibility in terms of HACCP compliance. The legislation recognises that in food businesses with low-risk activities, prerequisite programmes (PRPs) are sufficient to monitor food safety without the need to develop procedures based on HACCP principles. Further information on HACCP flexibility can be found in Guidance Note No. 11 HACCP Conformity Assessment (Revision 2) F. What are the hygiene requirements? All food businesses must comply with the necessary hygiene requirements laid down in the food hygiene legislation (Regulation (EC) No 852/2004/EC) in Article 4 and Annex II. In some cases, compliance with these requirements may be all a food business needs to meet its HACCP requirements. Q. What are the steps of the HACCP system? There are seven HACCP principles that must be considered when developing a food safety management system: 1. Identify what could go wrong (hazards) 2. Identify key points where things can go wrong (critical control points – CCPs) 3. Set critical limits for each CCP (e.g. temperature/cooking time) 4.
carry out checks on CCPs; to avoid problems (monitoring) 5. Deciding what to do if something goes wrong (corrective action) 6. Prove that your HACCP plan works (verification) and 7. Keep records of all of the above (documentation) For more information on these steps, see Guide 11 Q. If my HACCP plan is complete, do I need to check it? Your HACCP plan must be kept up to date. You need to check this from time to time, especially if something changes in your food establishment, for example, if you decide to keep food hot, you will need to update your plan to include this extra step. Q. Are there resources to help me develop my own HACCP plan? FSAI has launched the Safe Catering Pack, a tool that can be used to develop a food safety management system and compliance with food hygiene regulations for caterers. It gives businesses options to choose how they will do it.
The pack was developed with the help and expertise of the food industry and environmental health officers. It is based on HACCP principles. For more information about the package, you can visit the Safe Catering Pack section on our website, where you can watch the 3-minute promotional DVD explaining the benefits and content of the package. The existence and effectiveness of prerequisite programs should be assessed in the design and implementation of any HACCP plan.
