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HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is a food safety program especially for astronauts. The programme, developed around 30 years ago, aims at preventing hazards of food-borne illnesses by applying science-based controls, from raw material to finished products.

Industry and regulators have depended on spot-checks of manufacturing conditions and random sampling of final products to ensure safe food, which tends to be reactive rather than preventive. It can be less efficient in ensuring food safety and suitability. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has established HACCP for meat and poultry processing plants, as well. Most of these establishments were required to have HACCP by January 1999.

Especially in the developed countries, FDAs are considering to develop that would establish HACCP as the food safety standard throughout various areas of the food industry - harvesting, raw processing, packaging, distribution, retail service establishments and extending to vending machines, for both domestic and imported food products.

Pre-Requisite Programs For Seafood Industry:

• Cleaning & sanitation


• Personnel hygiene


• Source selection / harvesting and receiving of fish


• Incoming materials (ingredients, additives, packaging and wrapping)


• Listeria management (for specific processes)


• Product recall


• Repair & maintenance


• Transportation & Storage at specified temperatures


• Vermin / pest management


• Potability of water and ice (including clean seawater)


• Waste management (inedible & dropped product)

HACCP Plan

The HACCP plan is aided as the preliminary steps, which includes the HACCP team, product description with its intended use, setting food safety objectives for the process and creation and verification of the process flow diagram. Implementation of HACCP requires the commitment from management. It involves the following seven principles:

• Analyse Hazards: Potential hazards associated with a food and measures to control those hazards are identified. The hazard could be biological microbial pathogens such as Vibrio SPS, Listeria, etc, pathogens; chemical, such as a heavy metal residues of mercury & lead; or physical, such as ground glass or metal fragments, shell fragments and bones. The risks are assessed in terms of their severity and probability to identify significant hazards for CCP identification.



• Identify Critical Control Points: These are points in a production of food from its raw state through processing and shipping to consumption by the consumer, at which the potential hazard can be controlled or eliminated. Examples are harvesting / sourcing, storage at controlled temperatures, cooking, cooling, packaging and metal detection.
  


• Establish Critical Limits For Each Control Point: These are minimum or maximum values, which are necessary to ensure food safety and have to be measurable - microbial limits for incoming fish / seafood, receiving temperatures, etc.



• Establish Procedures to Monitor The Critical Control Points: Such procedures are used to ensure that adherence to the specified critical limits are maintained. This might include determining how, how often and by whom chiller temperatures should be monitored.



• Establish Corrective Actions To Be Taken When Monitoring Shows That A Critical Limit Has Not Been Met: Reprocessing or disposing of food if the minimum cooking temperature is not met, is one of the examples when such procedures are used. It also includes identification of cause of deviation to prevent future recurrences.



• Establish Procedures To Verify That The System Is Working Properly: The same includes process/product validation for CCPs, ongoing system verification and system reassessment - testing time and temperature recording devices to verify that a chilling unit is working properly.



• Establish Effective Record Keeping to Document the HACCP System: This system includes records of hazards and their control methods, the monitoring of safety requirements and action taken to correct potential problems.

Need For HACCP

There are a number of new challenges in food supply, which have forced FDAs to consider adopting a HACCP-based food safety system on a wider basis. Increasing number of new food pathogens is one of the bigger challenges in this business segment. For example, between 1973 and 1988, bacteria was not previously recognized as major causes of food-borne illness such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enteritidis became more widespread. There is also increasing public health concern about chemical contamination of food such as the effects of lead in food on the nervous system.

The USFDA has published its final rule on Seafood HACCP Program. The European Commission also recognizes the benefits of HACCP and has incorporated the HACCP principles into the Food Hygiene Directive and Revised Directives for the fish, meat, poultry and milk industry. Hence, the development of HACCP will inevitably extend from processing premises into catching and harvesting areas of seafood industry. Considering the increasing awareness of domestic consumers at large, implementation and certification to HACCP will provide a powerful tool in combating health concerns, breaking barriers for foreign trade. It is best way to improve the competitive edge over major competitors.


Advantages

• HACCP provides several advantages over existing systems in companies.


• It focuses on identifying and preventing hazards from contaminating food.


• The system helps to establish ability to detect, control and prevent new and emerging pathogens.


• It is a system and science based approach to food safety.


• It places responsibility for ensuring food safety appropriately on the food manufacturer or distributor.


• It increases consumer confidence and market acceptability.


• Reduces barriers to international trade and helps food companies to compete effectively in domestic as well as worldwide markets.


• It improves the ability of companies to launch newer products at a faster pace.

Integrated ISO 9000/ HACCP Systems Certification

The concept of implementing the ISO 9000/HACCP systems is the right answer to food sector concerns with respect to quality and safety issues, through the simultaneous application of food quality and safety systems.