Tag Archives: CCP

Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Seafood HACCP for FSMA

By Tim Hansen
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While HACCP has been highly successful and truly promoted seafood safety and consumer confidence in these products, there are several useful lessons that may make your transition to FSMA compliance easier.

One of the tenets of FSMA is the requirement for preventive systems (AKA HACCP) for all food groups regulated by FDA. Up to the time of passage of FSMA, FDA wanted preventive systems only for seafood, fruit and vegetable juices and low-acid canned foods.

Since the requirement for preventive controls is about to be extended to all foods regulated by FDA, it may be instructive for affected food firms to consider some of the common problems experienced by the seafood industry during the implementation of HACCP. This regulation has been highly successful and truly promoted seafood safety and consumer confidence in these products. There are several useful lessons that may make your transition to compliance easier.

1. Unnecessary CCPs. Implementation of the Seafood HACCP regulation came with a great deal of uncertainty for the industry. Their response was to include a hazard as a CCP even when it did not meet the FDA “reasonably likely to occur” standard. This resulted in some cases overly complicated HACCP plans. Firms can avoid this problem through rigorous hazard analysis and following agency guidance for the commodity being processed.

2. Mixing sanitation controls with HACCP controls. The Seafood HACCP Regulation requires that certain aspects of sanitation be properly controlled, monitored and documented through records. While it is feasible to include these controls within the HACCP plan it is much simpler keep sanitation controls separate from HACCP controls. A sanitation SOP is highly recommended that show how sanitation is controlled, monitored and recorded.

3. Monitoring need to be available in their original form in an organized fashion. Inadequate or poorly organized monitoring records were a big problem. Ideally, records should not be rewritten unless absolutely necessary. Rewritten records are a red flag to FDA investigators. If records are missing do not falsify information to fill the gaps. This could be the basis for a severe regulatory action. It is much better to perform a verification review and corrective action that is available to the investigator.

4. If a new product is introduced to your processing operation the HACCP plan should be amended immediately. Do not wait until a convenient time as a regulator could show up at any time. Also, do not assume that the hazard analysis and HACCP plan for a similar product will be the same. Either can result in a finding of failure to have a HACCP plan. You should start at the beginning with a proper hazard analysis and develop the plan for that product in accordance with the hazards you identify.

5. Scientific studies used to establish a critical limit for a CCP should be readily available to the investigator. For example, a study to show the necessary heat penetration time-temperature parameters of a cooked product to achieve sufficient bacterial kill or the proper mix of salt, water and exposure time to achieve a proper level of water phase salts in a cold smoked fish products are important information for the investigator to evaluate whether the critical limit of a CCP is adequate to control the hazard.

6. Generic HACCP plans should not be used. In the past some operations adopted a generic HACCP plan to cover their processing without performing a hazard analysis. This often resulted in hazards being missed and a faulty plan. FDA expects that each firm will conduct a hazard analysis. Not doing so could result in a serious charge.

This article originally appeared in EAS-e-News, March 2015 edition. 

 

Bob Savage, President and Founder of the HACCP Consulting Group

FSQA: Creating HACCP Excellence

By Michael Biros
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Bob Savage, President and Founder of the HACCP Consulting Group

For a successful Food Safety and Quality Assurance program, there must be management commitment and measurable expectations set. Senior management has to be committed to the program. They are the foundation for everything in food safety. They have to provide resources to develop and implement the plans across different departments as well as provide for training and encourage communication, advises Robert A. Savage, President and Founder of The HACCP Consulting Group.

Sharing some lessons learned from decades of HACCP implementation experience, Savage spoke at a recent webinar on FSQA: Creating HACCP Excellence, presented by SafetyChain Software. We present excerpts below. 

A few years ago, there was a very serious Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter. It appears that company shopped around for negative salmonella results and then shipped the product. It’s a worst case scenario, but in this case, short term profitability at the expense of food safety resulted in the over 600 illnesses and a few deaths as well as the bankruptcy of the company, described Savage.

Role of GMPs in Creating and Minimizing CCPs

Without good GMPs, facilities tend to have more CCPs than necessary. There has to be a good balance between GMPs and CCPs. When companies understand the the relationship between HACCP, GMPs, and CCPs, typically the HACCP plan would not have more than 3 or 4 CCPs and everything else is covered by GMPs. 

Best practices for HACCP management must be committed from the beginning and throughout the process. GMPs should be in place prior to even beginning to revamp the HACCP plan. Multidisciplinary HACCP teams, including QC, QA, Lab, Sanitation, Product Development and Sales, experts, should contribute to the process in developing the plan. Having a multidisciplinary team helps with achieving buy-in or company-wide commitment to the plan. 

Companies have been pretty good with monitoring, but there’s still some confusion between verification and validation. Verification is a check of the checkers. When CCPs are identified and monitored, verification is making sure that the company says what it’s doing and is doing what it says. Validation asks if the company has the right CCPs and how can they prove it. 

Best Practices for Audit Prep

USDA regulated plants have routine inspections to verify what the companies do on an everyday basis. Separate from these routine inspections, USDA also performs food safety assessments which can take days or weeks to complete. Companies under USDA jurisdiction should do their own food safety inspection to prepare for these FSIS audits. FDA regulated plants may go months or years between inspections. These facilities should have third party audits such as SQF or other audits. 

GFSI schemes have taken hold in the US and around the world. The popular one in the U.S. is SQF. Companies that meet SQF standards should have no problem meeting new FDA FSMA regulations.