The HACCP team and scope

Step 1 has two parts. Make sure the right expertise is available, and define what the plan covers.

Throughout this course we will use one example. A small production kitchen makes chilled cottage pies. It sells them to care homes and farm shops. Its HACCP team has four people: the owner, the head chef, the supervisor of the packing line, and a part-time maintenance engineer.

Codex says the food business operator should ensure that appropriate knowledge and expertise are available. This may be achieved through a multidisciplinary team from different activities, such as production, maintenance, quality control, cleaning and disinfection. The point is to get different views of the same process. A supervisor knows what happens on the late shift. An engineer knows how the oven really performs. A hygiene lead knows which parts are hard to clean. A buyer knows which supplier changed last month. A team drawn from one department will share the same blind spots.

Choose a team leader who has been properly trained, who can run a meeting, and who will challenge weak reasoning. The leader records who attended, what was decided and why. Later, an auditor may ask why a hazard was left out as well as why one was included.

Senior management does not need to attend every meeting, but it needs to give the team time, money and authority. Codex says management awareness and commitment are necessary for an effective system.

In a small business the team may be one or two people. Codex accepts that a well-trained individual with access to guidance may be able to implement a HACCP system in house. Where expertise is not available in house, it should be obtained from other sources: trade and industry associations, independent experts, competent authorities, HACCP literature and sector guides.

Outside help is useful, but the business must own the result. A consultant can write a document, but cannot stand on your floor every day. Codex says a comprehensive explanation of the basis for the plan should be provided to the business. A generic plan developed externally may be used where appropriate, but it should be tailored to the operation. Copying a plan from another site is a common failure. The plan looks complete, but it describes somebody else's business.

The team should also identify the scope of the HACCP system and the prerequisite programmes that apply. The scope should describe which food products and processes are covered. A useful scope answers these questions. Which products? Which site? Where does the plan start and stop? Which types of hazard does it cover? Which prerequisites does it depend on?

Here is the scope for our example: 'All chilled cooked products made at this site, from goods-in to dispatch. Covers biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards. Depends on the site cleaning, pest control, supplier approval, maintenance and training programmes.'

A scope should be narrow enough to manage, but it should leave no gaps. Gaps often appear between plans, or at a handover. If a contractor delivers the pies, who owns temperature control in the van? If the scope says nothing, nobody may be checking. Name the outsourced steps and say how they are controlled.

HACCP deals with food safety. Keep quality issues, such as the colour of a crust, out of the plan, or at least clearly apart. If quality points are mixed in with safety controls, the critical ones get lost.