If your business operates within the food sector chain you must have been through some very rough situations, that happens because the work needs perfectioning of quality and a high allegiance to the regulation’s requirements, besides, it is important to consider that these rules have been more prevalent and its objectives have been changing: supply consumer needs, produce good quality food and stay competitive within the market. Doesn’t matter what part of the chain you’re part of (factories, supermarkets, raw material suppliers, convenience stores, fast food). They all must guarantee the safety of their products and services to the buyers and consumers.
And for that to be standardized there are various means to help: Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP), Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), 5S, but in this post we’ll be specifying the highly recommended way of monitoring: CCP (Critical Control Point). So shall we better know, understand and have it as a practical model.
WHAT IS CRITICAL CONTROL POINT CCP?
“A step in which its applied a control inspector and that is essential to avoid or ever extinguish a threat to the food-safety or make it to an acceptable degree” (CÓDEX, 1997) (Translated).
When the risk is identified in one of the steps of the process and there’s no matter of control neither in the current or next stage, but the product still needs alteration, monitoring is very necessary.
WHAT IS MONITORING?
According to the Codex, monitoring is “the act of observing in a planned sequence or a set of parameters of control to measure if a HACCP is under control”. Since HACCP acts in a preventive way, keeping the process on track can be used to verify if the plan is being followed. If needed, the product will have the conditions of showcasing if the operations are following the HACCP, avoiding hassle and fines.
HOW TO MONITOR?
A collective of observations must be considered in the development of the monitoring plan. These observations must encompass all of the steps involved in the production process that could go wrong. Pinpoint what are the possible causes and consequences of it. The idea is to make a list of threats that can negatively affect the consumer. This tip must be considered as the first step for a monitoring plan and we can call it a Threat Analysis.
Some questions may help to Determine the Critical Control Points (PCC). (The second part of establishing a monitoring plan). Minding that the critical control point is a productive practice process that must be done correctly so it doesn’t put the final consumer at risk, some questions should be answered:
- Can contamination happen at this moment of the process?
- What are the actions to prevent that risk?
- If in the current situation nothing can be done, is there a possibility of extinguishing in the next few steps?
- In what way is the PCC going to be measured?
- And how can the PCC be emphasized?
It’s trivial to have a critical limit that can be monitored with a reglementary base. For that reason establish a critical limit.The risks change as the situation does, in this case, someone must be responsible for the monitoring. It’s expected that they have the capacity to keep up-to-date with the changes, communicate them, And elaborate actions to get the correct results at the right time. So implement motoring processes.
Having corrective actions is necessary to solve any situation so they don’t go over the critical limit established. Also, at this moment all variants must be measurable and well defined, for example: Who’s going to implement the action and who’s going to execute it.
There is a step in which plenty of continuous improvements will appear, that happens at the point of verification procedures. The verification goes beyond the monitoring, this point will determine if the plan is really working, if it’s solid if the threats have been identified and treated according to plan.
The registration of temperature, time, verification lists, forms, flow charts must have simple access, complementation and conclusion of information that demonstrates the enforcement of the norms. All of this must be considered in the moment of building maintenance and documentation of procedures.
In case you have all the analyses but still have difficulties in collecting data, analysing it, evincing it due to the amount of paper, excel sheets and digitalization, we invite you to know more about WayV, it can help you optimize your processes and give you the results that you aspire, like more time, security or quality, whatever you’re looking for to take your business to next level.
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