HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point)

Meat and Poultry by law must have a HACCP program in place, as well as fish canneries. Otherwise a HACCP is a voluntary program.

• The benefits of having a HACCP

One of the benefits of having a HACCP is for insurance sake. Most insurance companies will lower your rate if you have a HACCP.

Another benefit is against law suits. A good HACCP program will track your product from receiving to shipping. this will enable you to defend against impending law suites, by providing a flow thru of the product, and will be able to make a recall of your product easy, when things do go wrong.

• What is a HACCP ?

Say you own a bakery and you decide you want to implement a HACCP program. You would start with "receiving", Determine what can go wrong, in this case the flour maybe old or have worms, so you put into place a "Critical Control Point" to prevent any problems, the "Critical Control Point" could be a three stage program;
A. Any flour shown to be abused will be rejected.
B. Flour older then 6 months will be rejected.
C. Flour will be sifted before use.
This is done for each process, until shipping.