HACCP Principles in Practice

Whether their goal is to boost their reputation, improve operational efficiency, ensure the safety of their products, or achieve compliance with one of many national or global regulative systems in the food industry, food businesses are often highly motivated to adjust their processes to HACCP standards and become HACCP-certified. As a comprehensive system of well-established guidelines, HACCP provides a framework for many other systems and as such touches on all aspects of the food supply chain. Thanks to such a wide reach, the fact that HACCP is not mandatory does not make it any less essential for effective food safety management for any organisation in the industry.

Briefly put, HACCP, or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, is a systematic approach to food safety focused on elimination or prevention of food safety hazards at the level of individual products and processes. In addition to the identification of potential hazards, it also involves the identification of control points (CPs) and their classification as critical control points (CCPs) if further analysis shows them as such. All this is done with the goal of maintaining control over critical steps in each operational process and implementing corrective measures in a timely manner.

Curious about the basics of HACCP? Check out this article for more elemental details.

HACCP is based on seven clearly defined principles that are universal for the entire food industry. They must be integrated into every HACCP plan, regardless of the nature of any specific business. Adherence to those principles is thoroughly checked during both internal and external HACCP audits.

While adhering to HACCP principles is mandatory for obtaining the certificate, the approach to each principle is up to the organisation. The reason for this lies in the very nature of HACCP. Since the focus of HACCP is on particular steps of individual processes which vary from company to company, each company develops, implements, and maintains its HACCP plan in accordance with its unique needs.

This poses numerous practical challenges, from on-site analysis to monitoring and corrective actions to reliable reporting and documentation. Let's explore how HACCP principles work in practice and how smart auditing solutions can make their application more streamlined.

1. Conducting a hazard analysis: Identifying potential food safety hazards resulting from its operational processes should be the goal of every company in the food industry. For example, a raw meat packaging business will likely want to ensure its products are vacuum sealed correctly to avoid bacterial growth in improperly sealed packages. A thorough hazard analysis can reveal risks of microbial contamination and growth resulting from the vacuum packaging process, as well as controllable process steps, i.e. CPs, important for the prevention of this hazard. To streamline hazard analysis, from concept creation to on-site analysis, for all their production processes, the business could turn to a smart auditing solution. Ideally, such a solution could allow them to divide all processes into logical groups with easily accessible process steps and organise them into one or more standardised catalogues of questions fully customised to each processes. Any HACCP auditor using the catalogue would have full access to all processes and steps from a single mobile app.
   
   
2. Determining the CCPs: In order to prevent the identified hazards, the company should determine from the previously detected CPs the CCPs for each process. Our raw meat packaging business's HACCP team may decide that properly heat-sealing vacuum meat packages is one of the turning points in the vacuum packaging process. Marking it a CCP would ensure more rigorous control than for other steps of the same process. Thanks to the same smart auditing solution, this CCP, and all other CPs and CCPs, could be allocated under the relevant process groups and become a part of the same standardised questionnaire, with all CCPs being clearly marked as such, ensuring that critical steps are prioritised when applying the remaining principles.
   
   
3. Establishing critical limits: Critical limits are maximal / minimal values of crucial biological, chemical, or physical parameters assigned to each CCP which need to be controlled at that particular moment in the process to prevent, reduce, or eliminate the potential hazard. To achieve that, that same business from our example above could, for instance, set the temperature of the vacuum packing machine's heat sealing bar and the time it spends in contact with the plastic vacuum bag as critical limits. With a smart auditing solution, all established critical limits would be clearly linked to the relevant CCP in the same questions catalogue and easily accessible during an HACCP audit. To help the auditor in their assessment of critical limits, the catalogue could employ a traffic light system for each step and even incorporate detailed audit instructions.
   
   
4. Establishing monitoring procedures: Once the CCPs have been established, they need to be monitored thoroughly. The frequency, set by the HACCP team, depends on the process. In our running example, the critical limits for the heat seal integrity could be monitored via spot checks each morning, weekly, or at any other interval set by the company. A smart auditing solution would allow the HACCP team to plan audits well in advance and set automatic reminders for CCPs that require less frequent monitoring.
   
   
5. Establishing corrective actions: When a deviation is detected at a CCP, i.e. when the measured value does not meet the assigned critical limit, it is very important to implement timely and appropriate corrective actions. For our raw meat packaging business, that would mean considering if the package in question should be tested to verify seal integrity or be resealed right away. In addition, this deviation and the corrective action should also be documented in the company's system. In the event of a deviation, a smart auditing solution could automatically trigger the appropriate corrective actions, such as reporting the incident and automatically sending tailored reports to the right recipients, or generating a ticket specifically for the responsible persons with details such as priority, urgency, and severity of the deviation.
   
   
6. Establishing verification procedures: In addition to monitoring CCPs, companies also need to verify the efficiency of their monitoring and corrective procedures. For example, if in their reports a manager from our meat packaging company notices an increasing number of deviations during the heat sealing process, they might suspect that something is wrong with their equipment or that it is being used incorrectly. The necessary adjustments would include replacing or repairing the equipment or organising training sessions for their staff. In addition, they might also decide to periodically verify the heat seal integrity of finished packages using dye penetration tests to increase control over their monitoring and correction procedures. Thanks to robust reporting capabilities, a smart auditing system can greatly improve these verification procedures. Detailed and highly customised reports would allow thorough analysis of all collected information down to individual critical limits for maximum efficiency.
   
   
7. Record-keeping and documentation: Detailed records and transparent documentation are one of the staples of HACCP. Adhering to this final principle is integral for obtaining the HACCP certificate, passing rigorous external HACCP audits, and improving the company's HACCP plan in the long run. Automated real-time reporting functionalities of smart auditing software provide instant access to key performance indicators and streamline decision-making processes across the organisation. This, in combination with simultaneous standardisation and customisation capabilities, allows for continuous improvement of all processes involved in the organisation's HACCP plan, from updating question catalogues to demonstrating compliance through documentation.