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finished food products; it is also involved in the finding, correction and prevention
of the aforementioned hazards in production processes (Schedule 2012).
In HACCP guidelines, a hazard is a material or condition in food that can cause
illness or injury. So food stuffs that have undesirable conditions or contaminants
such as insects, hair, filth, spoilage, economic fraud and violations of regulatory
food standards not directly related to safety are not a concern. In addition, spoiled
food may not look, smell or taste good, if it is not concerning people’s safety then
that is not covered by HACCP. This becomes a HACCP concern if the food is
spoiled by pathogens or contaminated by toxic microbial by-products that have
potential to affect consumers. HACCP system development is guided by seven principles outline below.
27.5.1 HACCP Principles
There are seven principles of HACCP and these are followed by every country that
adopts it. The first principle states that every process requires hazard analysis. This
requires there should be a plan to identify all potential food safety hazards as well
as their control measures. As a matter of illustration, for every cooking process, one
of the potential hazards is pathogen survival that may arise from inadequate cooking
time or temperature. The second principle states that it is important to identify critical control points in every production process; points for prevention, elimination or
reduction of hazards. Based on our earlier example, cooking process could be one
of the critical control points as it requires some measures to prevent pathogen survival. The third principle requires establishment of critical limits for every critical
control point. These are acceptable limits of hazard that cannot compromise the
safety of food. In the cooking process example, critical limits could include specific
time and temperature to which the cooked food should be exposed. The fourth principles require the establishment of procedures to be followed when monitoring the
critical control points. The procedures should be as detailed as possible to ensure
safe operation of the process. In the cooking example, this could include the use of
a thermometer to check the temperature periodically. The fifth principle involves the
establishment of corrective measures. These are actions that must be taken to restore
a process to its track when there is a deviation from the critical limits. For example,
in the cooking illustration, when the required time or temperature is not reached,
corrective measures could be either further cooking or destroying the product. The
sixth principle requires the establishment of procedures for verification of an activity or condition. This involves application of methods, procedures, tests, sampling,
monitoring and evaluations of a process to determine whether a control measure at
a critical control point are running according to planned company’s written HACCP
program. The seventh principle is record keeping. A company is supposed to keep
records to show that there is effective application of the critical control points and
for official verification by a regulatory body or internal control team (CFIA 2018;
US FDA 2017).
A. G. Mtewa et al.
finished food products; it is also involved in the finding, correction and prevention
of the aforementioned hazards in production processes (Schedule 2012).
In HACCP guidelines, a hazard is a material or condition in food that can cause
illness or injury. So food stuffs that have undesirable conditions or contaminants
such as insects, hair, filth, spoilage, economic fraud and violations of regulatory
food standards not directly related to safety are not a concern. In addition, spoiled
food may not look, smell or taste good, if it is not concerning people’s safety then
that is not covered by HACCP. This becomes a HACCP concern if the food is
spoiled by pathogens or contaminated by toxic microbial by-products that have
potential to affect consumers. HACCP system development is guided by seven principles outline below.
27.5.1 HACCP Principles
There are seven principles of HACCP and these are followed by every country that
adopts it. The first principle states that every process requires hazard analysis. This
requires there should be a plan to identify all potential food safety hazards as well
as their control measures. As a matter of illustration, for every cooking process, one
of the potential hazards is pathogen survival that may arise from inadequate cooking
time or temperature. The second principle states that it is important to identify critical control points in every production process; points for prevention, elimination or
reduction of hazards. Based on our earlier example, cooking process could be one
of the critical control points as it requires some measures to prevent pathogen survival. The third principle requires establishment of critical limits for every critical
control point. These are acceptable limits of hazard that cannot compromise the
safety of food. In the cooking process example, critical limits could include specific
time and temperature to which the cooked food should be exposed. The fourth principles require the establishment of procedures to be followed when monitoring the
critical control points. The procedures should be as detailed as possible to ensure
safe operation of the process. In the cooking example, this could include the use of
a thermometer to check the temperature periodically. The fifth principle involves the
establishment of corrective measures. These are actions that must be taken to restore
a process to its track when there is a deviation from the critical limits. For example,
in the cooking illustration, when the required time or temperature is not reached,
corrective measures could be either further cooking or destroying the product. The
sixth principle requires the establishment of procedures for verification of an activity or condition. This involves application of methods, procedures, tests, sampling,
monitoring and evaluations of a process to determine whether a control measure at
a critical control point are running according to planned company’s written HACCP
program. The seventh principle is record keeping. A company is supposed to keep
records to show that there is effective application of the critical control points and
for official verification by a regulatory body or internal control team (CFIA 2018;
US FDA 2017).
A. G. Mtewa et al.