What is the HACCP concept - and how to implement it

Whether in transport logistics, in food warehouses or in restaurants, everyone who has anything to do with food has heard of the HACCP concept. But hardly anyone knows exactly what HACCP is, why it is so important and how to implement it successfully.

What is haccp?

HACCP - "Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points" - is a concept for identifying and preventing hazards for the end consumer. It is primarily used in the food industry. All possible sources of danger are first identified and analyzed. The decisive factor here is how likely the hazard is to occur and how serious it would be for the end consumer. It must then be demonstrated that a suitable preventive measure exists for each of these hazards. The implementation of these measures must be documented without exception, or you risk serious consequences for your company and, not least, for the end consumer.

Who should use HACCP?

Every food business operator is obliged to develop and implement an HACCP concept. Of course, it is difficult to generalize who exactly is a food business operator. However, if your business has anything to do with food, you should check carefully whether you are also obliged to apply an HACCP concept. There is a risk of severe penalties if you do not comply with your obligation. Examples of food businesses include: food transportation, cold stores, restaurants, food producers or processors.

But even if you do not belong to this group, an HACCP concept can be useful, for example, to better ensure occupational safety or sustainable action.

HACCP CHECKLISTS

Generally applicable HACCP checklists are hard to find on the Internet. There is a simple reason for this: there are none. Although many processes in the food industry are very similar, every HACCP checklist is individual. Every food and every industry, whether restaurant or meat processing, has different sources of danger and different measures. You should therefore always carry out a precise hazard analysis yourself or with external help. In this way, costly mistakes can be avoided.

Discover dangers

The very first thing you should do is identify all possible sources of danger in and around your company. These can occur in many different places. For example, during production, storage or transportation. These points are the "critical control points" that already appear in the name. The explicit hazards must be determined individually at these points. An example: For food that requires an uninterrupted cold chain, the cold store and refrigerated transportation are possible critical points. The explicit risk would be that the refrigeration fails or is set too low. This results in a concrete risk for the end customer.

To determine whether there is a specific hazard at a critical control point, it is advisable to use a risk matrix. Here is an example.

Combat dangers

Identifying the hazards is the first step. The next step is to ensure that these hazards are prevented and, above all, recorded. To do this, it must first be determined individually for each potential source of danger whether safety measures need to be taken. Which measures are ultimately to be taken for which hazard is usually already defined or subject to precise regulations. However, exceptions are also possible here. However, it would go beyond the scope of this article to go into specific measures. It is best to consult suitable experts to find out what measures should be taken in your company.

Example

In a fruit processing plant, the risk of metal splinters getting into the fruit was identified, posing a huge risk to the end consumer. A suitable measure would therefore be for all cartons to pass through a metal detector before leaving production. This would allow metal parts to be detected and removed. The risk was therefore prevented. This measure now needs to be implemented and, above all, regularly checked and recorded.

Logging and control

As soon as the hazard identification process has been completed and all measures have been implemented, your HACCP concept is ready. However, the most important part by far is the logging. You must ensure that you can prove at any time that you have implemented the HACCP concept. This is regularly checked by an auditor. If not all hazards are prevented or the logging is incorrect, this can lead to production or delivery stops or even product recalls. These measures then continue until the risk can be eliminated. An absolute horror for any company. After all, incidents like these can leave a deep hole in the annual financial statements or even threaten a company's existence.

Example

A good example to illustrate this is transportation, which is relevant in almost all areas of the food industry. As soon as transportation has been identified as a source of danger, you can start to determine the explicit dangers. An example of this would be refrigeration or simply cleanliness and germ contamination. In order to make this "critical control point" HACCP-compliant, precise cleaning specifications must be adhered to. The truck drivers and employees who are to ensure cleanliness in truck trailers with the high-pressure cleaner must receive further training in order to be able to carry out and record the cleaning in accordance with HACCP. This also results in a high level of bureaucracy for the company and the drivers.

Cost savings

Implementing HACCP safely in transport logistics

As soon as your completed HACCP concept is set up, it's time for optimization. Keeping HACCP concepts running can be very expensive. It is therefore all the more important that your HACCP concept always remains agile. In order to save costs, you should always be on the lookout for cheaper or more efficient measures. Of course, safety must not suffer as a result. One example of this is KATMA CleanControl:

In future, truck loading compartments will be cleaned with the fully automated solution from KATMA CleanControl. This is a patented robot that cleans fully autonomously and in a standardized manner. It is not only faster and cheaper than cleaning with a high-pressure cleaner, but also significantly cleaner and more thorough. Thanks to standardization, each wash cycle is assigned a digital certificate that is valid as HACCP verification. This saves expensive training, time and money. The certification is automatically transferred to the carrier's TMS (transport management system or ERP) system and is as easy to present as a Covid certificate. By far the safest way to clean and the new standard of cleanliness.

Conclusion

In conclusion, an HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) is pretty much exactly what the name suggests. A concept for avoiding hazards and protecting the end consumer. You can already make some valuable considerations about your HACCP concept based on this article. However, we recommend that you always consult someone who is more familiar with the exact hazards and measures. This way, you will always be on the safe side and avoid high penalties for you personally or your company. Above all, make sure that your concept and measures are well documented. Once your concept has been set up, you should always work on optimizing it.