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Issues: Food Safety

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Programs

PMA endorses the concept of voluntary HACCP programs and believes any member company can use the seven principles to develop its own HACCP program to further enhance food safety protocols.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) identifies critical control points concerning biological, chemical, and physical hazards and establishes means to control these hazards. To prepare a HACCP plan, describe the produce or floral item and its intended use and develop a flow chart for the production and handling of that item. The principles were developed by the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. The seven principles of HACCP are:

• Perform a hazard assessment, including ingredients or materials used prior to any processing/handling step, end product.
• Select critical control points; enter on flow diagram in numerical order, list critical control point number and description.
• Establish critical limits.
• Establish monitoring requirements.
• Establish corrective action to be taken when a deviation is identified by monitoring of a critical control point.
• Establish effective record-keeping systems that document the HACCP plan.
• Establish procedures for industrial and government verification that the HACCP plan is working properly. Verification measures may include physical, chemical, and organoleptic methods, and, when needed, establishment of microbiological criteria.

For additional information about HACCP, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.