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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Top Food Safety Websites
You ask…How do I learn about food safety regulation? What pathogens in foods can make me sick? What temperature should I safely cook my roast beef to and how do I take food temperatures? How do I clean and sanitize anything according to the FDA Food Code? What and where is the most recent version of the FDA Food Code? Where can I find food safety educational materials galore in book form or online? Do I need them in Spanish or a Chinese dialect?
A Little Poultry Safety Information
Chicken is the number one species of protein consumed by Americans – we eat about 80 pounds of it per year. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have long been associated with poultry and eggs usually by undercooking it or cross-contamination of other foods by raw poultry. Recent concerns about avian or bird flu put the direct focus on our fowl food with concerns about whether this awful disease can transfer from birds to humans.
The Basic Principles of Food Safety
Every food establishment uses, processes, and sells food in different ways. However, the general issues and key principles of food safety remain the same, whatever the style of the operation. All food safety training programs should contain the “big 3” factors that could cause food to become unsafe. Food must be kept out of harms way from human errors, but if you don’t train food workers what they are, they won’t know why these factors are so important to your operation. The basics can make us or break us in one or maybe two food handling mistakes.
Be Aware When You Prepare – Food Prep Tips
The subject of food preparation covers some very broad, basic principles within food safety, with many steps associated with “risk” in some recipes. Certainly, preparation steps are where the most mistakes have occurred if a foodborne illness should occur. Outbreaks usually happen when more than one mistake occurs during prep, but sometimes it only takes one. Cooking is the biggest risk for raw foods, but all foods become ready-to-eat foods at some point in final preparation steps and that’s where the most care is required.
