HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. It is not a document you buy and it is not a certificate. It is a way of managing food safety hazards by working out where in your own process something could go wrong, deciding which of those points actually control the hazard, and then monitoring those points and recording that you did. Every food business in Great Britain has to run a food safety management system based on it.
What HACCP stands for, half by half
Hazard Analysis is the first half: listing what could make food unsafe in your process, biological, chemical, physical and allergenic. Critical Control Point is the second: the steps where control can actually be applied and is essential to prevent or reduce a hazard to a safe level. Cooking is the classic one, chilling is another, and most kitchens have fewer than they expect.
Why a HACCP system is not a form
The reason the law says based on HACCP principles rather than fill in this form is that no template knows your kitchen. Two takeaways with the same menu can have different critical points because one buys pre cooked and the other cooks from raw. A downloaded plan that does not describe your process is evidence of nothing.
HACCP food safety for a small business: what it actually needs
For most small caterers and retailers the FSA's Safer food, better business pack is the food safety management system, and completing it honestly satisfies the requirement. Larger and manufacturing businesses build a full HACCP study, usually with a consultant, and a certification standard on top of it if their customers require one.
HACCP food hygiene: how an inspector reads it
An environmental health officer is looking for a system that matches what you actually do, records that show it was followed, and a person who can explain it. The third of those catches more businesses than the first two, because a plan nobody in the kitchen can describe is a plan nobody is running.
HACCP UK businesses must follow, and where the duty comes from
The duty sits in retained EU food hygiene law, which requires any food business to put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure based on HACCP principles, proportionate to the business. Two things follow from the wording. It is a PROCEDURE rather than a document, so a folder nobody works to does not discharge it. And proportionate means a corner cafe is not expected to produce what a manufacturer produces: the regulator's own small business pack is written to satisfy the duty for a kitchen, and using it properly is compliance rather than a shortcut. Primary production on a farm sits outside the HACCP requirement and under its own hygiene rules instead, which is the one common exemption worth knowing.
HACCP procedures, written so the kitchen can actually run them
A procedure that works is short, in the language the staff use, and fixed to the place the step happens. Delivery checks live at the back door with the thermometer, cooking and hot holding checks live by the range with the probe, and the fridge check sheet lives on the fridge. Each one names the limit, who checks, how often, what to do when it is out of limit, and where it is recorded. The commonest failure is a procedure written for an inspection rather than for a shift: eleven pages of hazard analysis and no probe in the kitchen. The second commonest is a monitoring sheet filled in at the end of the week, which records nothing except that somebody had a pen.
Questions people ask about HACCP
Is HACCP a legal requirement in the UK?
A documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles is required of food businesses under assimilated Regulation 852/2004. HACCP certification is not required; the system is.
What does HACCP stand for?
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. The plural, critical control points, is how it is usually spoken about because most processes have more than one.
Do I need a consultant to write a HACCP plan?
A small caterer generally does not: the FSA pack is designed to be completed by the business. Manufacturing, complex processes and customer audits are where a consultant earns their fee.
How many steps in HACCP, and are they the same as the principles?
No, and the two numbers confuse people constantly. There are seven PRINCIPLES, which are the substance of the system, and the international guidance sets out twelve STEPS to apply them: five preliminary tasks, which are assembling the team, describing the product, identifying its intended use, drawing the flow diagram and confirming that diagram on site, followed by the seven principles as steps six to twelve. A small kitchen does the preliminary work informally and still needs it: getting the flow diagram wrong, or never walking it to check, is what puts a control at the wrong step.