HACCP Doesn’t Have to Be All or Nothing: Even Incremental Changes Can Have a Big Impact on your Food Safety Program
Most foodservice operators hear Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, otherwise known as “HACCP,” and picture binders full of flowcharts, scientific analyses, and regulatory paperwork. And while a full, formal plan can start to look exactly like that, the truth is that you don’t have to implement the entire system to benefit from HACCP principles. Even adopting pieces of the framework will reduce your risk of a foodborne illness outbreak.
Our colleagues who manage school foodservice operations are already well-versed in HACCP systems. School foodservice authorities participating in the National School Lunch or National School Breakfast program had to implement HACCP systems over 20 years ago. For those who don’t quite recall the fundamentals of HACCP, it is a systematic, science-based approach to identifying where biological, chemical, and physical hazards can impact your foodservice operation. Then, putting controls in place to prevent, eliminate, or reduce those hazards to safe levels. It was originally developed for NASA’s space food program and has since become the global gold standard for food safety.
The system is built around seven core principles: conducting a hazard analysis, identifying critical control points (CCPs), establishing critical limits, setting up monitoring procedures, defining corrective actions, implementing verification, and maintaining documentation.
…Perfect is the enemy of good in food safety…
If you’re running a restaurant, a catering company, a senior living dining program, or any other foodservice operation without a formal HACCP plan, you can still harness the power of this system right now. Here are a few ideas to get started:
Perfect is the enemy of good in food safety. A foodservice operation that monitors temperatures religiously, trains staff on handwashing and cross-contamination, and documents corrective actions is dramatically safer than one waiting to implement a “perfect” HACCP plan someday. Start with your highest-risk foods, build simple monitoring habits, and document what you do. Risk Nothing.
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Food Defense—What is Your Game Plan?
We are into the season of Friday Night Lights and for many of you, this is a time when offensive and defensive strategies are discussed and rehashed during Monday morning quarterbacking sessions. Most of you working in foodservices have your “offensive” game under control with menu item and service strategies to ensure customer satisfaction--a big part of your play book. But, how is your “defensive” game? Do you have procedures in place to protect food from intentional contamination? In this blog, we will cover some background on food defense and discuss whether it really is a necessary strategy. In the second posting for this month, action steps for operations to consider will be presented.
Evaluating Food Safety
One of the suggestions I made in the last blog was to assess the food safety culture in your organization by observing the food handling techniques of workers. Let’s explore that some more. You can do an overall assessment or you can hone in on specific areas of the operation, such as production or cleaning practices. Remember, when the environmental health inspector visits your operation, he/she just gets a snapshot of what is going on in your operation on that particular day at that specific time. You are there nearly every day, so you have a much better understanding on what really happens in your operation.
September is National Food Safety Month: The Future of Food Safety
Each September we recognize the importance of food safety every day in our operations by celebrating National Food Safety Month. This year’s theme, The Future of Food Safety, emphasizes the changing environment in which foodservice operates. Each week of September has a unique focus:
September is Food Safety Education Month: The Culture of Food Safety
Developing a culture of food safety is important for any foodservice operation. You may be wondering--just what is a culture of food safety? Let’s start talking about it by first defining what is meant by culture. When you look culture up in the dictionary, you will see terms such as shared knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, and meanings; a way of life; patterns of behavior; learned behavior of a group of people; and transmitted from generation to generation. I think these descriptors provide good insight into the meaning of a culture of food safety. You can also think about where you grew up, and a vision of culture comes. For example, I grew up in rural Oklahoma, graduating in the 1970’s with a class of 24 students. My culture instilled in me an appreciation for rural life, hard work, and independence. As I grow older, I realize I haven’t changed very much from my early years, even though I have completed a PhD, lived a lot of places, and traveled throughout the world!
