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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Be Cool, Chill Out, Refrigerate Promptly!
The Cold Chain -- Keeping perishable foods at proper cold holding temperatures (between 28°F and 41°F maximum or 0°F for frozen food) from your food producers / manufacturers to your customers has to be one of our strongest links to safe food and high quality. Sometimes that is referred to in the food industry as “maintaining the COLD CHAIN”. Any slip ups in the cold chain, and we have a weak link. Most all of our state food regulations require 41°F as a cold maximum, but colder is a “best practice” policy to maintain.
Cutting Board Safety
Everyone knows to prepare food only on a clean and sanitized surface. Everyone also knows not to prepare food on a surface previously used to prepare any type of uncooked meat—cross-contamination. But does everyone know what this clean, sanitized, uncontaminated surface should be made out of? Or how cutting boards should be cared for?
A Date with Safe Food Labels
When it comes to food, calendar dates relating to time and temperature are important and sometimes confusing. Terms we use are: 1) food product or code dating used for commercial food manufacturing and 2) date marking used for food prepared onsite in a restaurant. In a restaurant at the receiving step or the retail food store as a consumer, "Sell by July 14" is a type of information you might find on a meat or poultry product. Are dates required on food products? Does it mean the product will be unsafe to use after that date? Here is some background information, which answers these and other questions about food product dating.
