If you are starting a new food business you will need a HACCP or Food Safety Management System (FSMS) in place to make sure your business is legal. The Food Standards agency has lots of useful advice on getting ready to start your food business including how to register, selling food and allergens.

Which HACCP system should I choose?

Small catering businesses

If you are small catering business Safer Foods Better Business (SFBB) is recommended. This is a ready made pack with safe methods and a diary template that you complete to show what you are doing in your business.

SFBB is suitable if you run a small food business such as a deli or café’ and is available to download for free from the Food Standards Agency website SFBB. The SFBB pack is also available for retailers, care homes and for different cuisines. There is also a new online package SFBB+ which is available via an app with a monthly subscription.

Small food manufacturers

If you are starting a small food manufacturing business you could use MyHACCP which is a free online tool developed by the Food Standards Agency. It will help you identify and control the specific  risks in your food production process, and to build your own product based HACCP.

Alternatively if you do not have the expertise in your business or require more support with HACCP you could ask a food safety consultant to help you.

The seven principles of HACCP

A HACCP or Food Safety Management System should be based on the seven HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) principles:

1.   Conduct a Hazard Analysis- identify hazards and controls to stop them happening

2.   Identify the critical control points-the points in the production process where food safety is critical

3.   Establish critical limits-usually a time/temperature set in legislation/linked to best practice

4.   Monitor Critical control point- checks to ensure controls are working at these points

5.   Establish corrective action - what must happen if the critical limits are not met

6.   Verification-systems to check the HACCP is working

7.   Documentation - records for the HACCP system

This will ensure that you have a written record of the hazards in your food business which is required by law.

What a HACCP system for food production should include:

• Details of staff with HACCP knowledge and training.

• A detailed description of the food being made.

• A flow chart(s) showing the stages of food production which can be product or procedure based depending on your business.

• The 7 principles of HACCP (see above) applied to each production step.

• Pre-requisite programs to create a safe environment for producing food. These should be based on good manufacturing practice e.g. cleaning, pest control, handwashing etc.

• Standard operating procedures - a set of specific instructions for staff to follow to help them produce safe food.

• Operational Pre-requisite programs -  to control specific hazards or contamination in the food production process, for example metal contamination.

As part of the HACCP system you will also need to look at microbiological testing, packaging and labelling, as well as allergens, product recall and traceability. You could also consider a risk evaluation tool,  quality management, organoleptic (taste/smell) testing and auditing. There is a lot to think about…!

Once your HACCP system is written and in place it must be reviewed regularly. This is important to do when any part of the production changes e.g. new packaging; or if you introduce new ingredients or products.

Contact us if you need further advice or assistance with your current or to help you create a new HACCP for your product or service based food business.