11 replies to this topic

[haytonproduce3]

Hi everyone,

I am creating a new Haccp plan for our farm. I am creating a plan for safety reasons and to ensure that we have preventative tools to help us reduce the likelihood of contamination, but the audit that requires us to do a haccp plan is a packinghouse audit. The cucumbers are the only things that go into the packinghouse to get washed, waxed and packed, and the cauliflower is field wrapped and packed. I do want to include both the cucumber and cauliflower in my haccp plan but should i create two separate plans or keep them as one plan? The previously person at my position created a haccp plan but I did not have the time or tools to create a fully functional plan. Does anyone have any examples of good haccp plans for fresh vegetables such as cauliflower or cucumbers or anything else.

At this point any help would be great.

Thanks.

[Charles.C]

Hi everyone,

I am creating a new Haccp plan for our farm. I am creating a plan for safety reasons and to ensure that we have preventative tools to help us reduce the likelihood of contamination, but the audit that requires us to do a haccp plan is a packinghouse audit. The cucumbers are the only things that go into the packinghouse to get washed, waxed and packed, and the cauliflower is field wrapped and packed. I do want to include both the cucumber and cauliflower in my haccp plan but should i create two separate plans or keep them as one plan? The previously person at my position created a haccp plan but I did not have the time or tools to create a fully functional plan. Does anyone have any examples of good haccp plans for fresh vegetables such as cauliflower or cucumbers or anything else.

At this point any help would be great.

Thanks.

Dear haytonproduce,

There are some vegetable haccp plans on this forum.

The typical answer to yr query regarding 2 plans is that it depends on how similar the flowcharts / hazard analyses are, and particularly on the respective CCPs. If there are significant differences usually need 2 plans.

Is it possible for you to post yr own flowchart / haccp plan ? This may produce more immediately useful feedback from other members. For example is there any further processing involved such as cutting or only straight harvesting process ?

Rgds / Charles.C

[Jason Young]

Here is a model for cucumbers - may give you a start. Just by the nature of the product, I think the cauliflower may be a separate HACCP Plan.

Jason

Attached Files

•  0 HACCP Signature Page.rtf   50.74KB   113 downloads
•  0 HACCP Plan Cucurbits.docx   14.58KB   183 downloads
•  1 Product Description.doc   29KB   133 downloads
•  2 Flow Cucurbits.docx   11.59KB   143 downloads
•  3 Hazard Analysis Worksheet.doc   45.5KB   198 downloads

[azaam nafiz]

Hi everyone,

I am creating a new Haccp plan for our farm. I am creating a plan for safety reasons and to ensure that we have preventative tools to help us reduce the likelihood of contamination, but the audit that requires us to do a haccp plan is a packinghouse audit. The cucumbers are the only things that go into the packinghouse to get washed, waxed and packed, and the cauliflower is field wrapped and packed. I do want to include both the cucumber and cauliflower in my haccp plan but should i create two separate plans or keep them as one plan? The previously person at my position created a haccp plan but I did not have the time or tools to create a fully functional plan. Does anyone have any examples of good haccp plans for fresh vegetables such as cauliflower or cucumbers or anything else.

At this point any help would be great.

Thanks.

Hi,

See below attached,but it is for fruit salads (hope you can pick few points as it is also for fresh produce)

Attached Files

•  HACCP_Plan_Fruit_Salad.pdf   62.06KB   179 downloads

[haytonproduce3]

Dear haytonproduce,

There are some vegetable haccp plans on this forum.

The typical answer to yr query regarding 2 plans is that it depends on how similar the flowcharts / hazard analyses are, and particularly on the respective CCPs. If there are significant differences usually need 2 plans.

Is it possible for you to post yr own flowchart / haccp plan ? This may produce more immediately useful feedback from other members. For example is there any further processing involved such as cutting or only straight harvesting process ?

Rgds / Charles.C

Attached Files

•  haccp plan.docx   37.92KB   140 downloads
•  HACCP_Plan_Form.doc   40.5KB   113 downloads

[haytonproduce3]

Thanks for the reply.

I attached what the former food safety manager had come up with as far as our haccp plan goes. It has a lot of deficiencies but she had no formal training on haccp. I have been researching and going though our data and documents and it really seems like neither cukes or cauli have CCPs at our farm. Can you have a haccp plan without CCPs and just CPs? It just seems like we have regulations and guidelines in place for all the CCPs our former safety manager came up with. They dont seem like CCPs but CPs. SHe put down that chemical application, washing cukes, and storing the products were CCPs but we have guidelines and checks to make sure high standards are kept, and nothing ever has been recalled or contaminated so i can say the likelihood of severe contamination is very unlikely. The flow of the two products cukes and cauli are fairly similar other then the fact one is field packed without washing (cauli) and one is washed and packed (cukes). As far as the flow diagram is concerned. is it needed that i start from the beginning of the process such as planting the plants or can i start at harvesting time? does that matter because the haccp is going packinghouse.
Thanks for your time. any feedback is great!

[haytonproduce3]

thanks for the help.

For the flow diagram, is it better to include more steps or keep it simple???

[Charles.C]

thanks for the help.

For the flow diagram, is it better to include more steps or keep it simple???

Dear haytonproduce,

Thks for documents.

Few quick comments –

A haccp plan typically requires completion of all 7, sometimes more, steps referred in yr 1st attachment. The specific required details may well depend on yr intended use of the “plan”, eg the requirements of yr intended standard of certification.

The hazard analysis typically covers the process itself and any inputs (eg if you receive raw material from another grower, this will be an input and you will have to assess its risk). It could include outputs, onward distribution and further if required but often does not, other than if required for items such as traceability, recall .

The 2nd attachment describes some results of an (unknown) hazard analysis. Difficult to evaluate further without at least a flow chart and a hazard analysis
The flow chart should have sufficient detail that someone could use it to walk through yr set-up and compare the various stages. Normally it should show all process steps plus inputs (eg ingredients, packaging) and outputs such as waste materials (the last item is sometimes omitted, this may not matter depending on the standard involved). The haccp plan is based on the flowchart so any significant omissions may result in an invalid risk assessment for yr own, and audit, purposes.

Yes, a haccp plan may have no CCPs as such. Haccp involves risk assessment which is subjective. Risk analysis of a”harvesting vegetables process” within a haccp framework can be a matter of opinion (and sometimes definition) as far as CCPs are concerned. may also depend on local interpretations. Some process steps such as in post#3 are popular choices but not agreed on by all users. For example, based on their own interpretation, AFAIK USFDA do not specify any CCPs for yr type of process, they focus on giving guidance for “minimising risks”. There is often no perfect answer but it is necessary that you can validate yr preferred response.

Some growers prefer to be certified within a GAP scheme which gives (maybe) more prescriptive requirements as to precise documentation to be submitted.

I am unsure as to yr technical background regarding haccp. If limited, a quick course may be helpful.
There are some free, downloadable, fully explained, generic haccp manuals with extensive forms / examples on this forum if you are interested.?

Another flow chart for postharvesting here –
http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__34610
(this is probably over-detailed although nice)
(some hazard analyses [for ISO22000] for this flowchart in later posts in this thread).

2 more growing / harvesting vegetable haccp plans here –
http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__52698

Rgds / Charles.C

[Jason Young]

The attached document could be a HACCP plan summary with justification as to why there are no CCP's. But it does need to be supported with an excellent GAP program.

I agree with Charles, there may not be any CCP's in a produce operation. And the process flow needs to incorporate the steps at your facility which could lead to potential hazards (biological, chemical, physical). Even without a CCP, it is important to have a Hazard Analysis (Risk Assessment) assess each step of the process. Then the hazard analysis helps to identify the use of GAP/Prerequisite programs within your system, which can be used to support not having a CCP.



Jason

Attached Files

•  0 HACCP Plan Summary and Justification - Vegetables.doc   29KB   125 downloads

[gelato]

The attached document could be a HACCP plan summary with justification as to why there are no CCP's. But it does need to be supported with an excellent GAP program.

I agree with Charles, there may not be any CCP's in a produce operation. And the process flow needs to incorporate the steps at your facility which could lead to potential hazards (biological, chemical, physical). Even without a CCP, it is important to have a Hazard Analysis (Risk Assessment) assess each step of the process. Then the hazard analysis helps to identify the use of GAP/Prerequisite programs within your system, which can be used to support not having a CCP.



Jason

HACCP by defintion is a risk analysis. Once the analysis as it relates to Biological, Physical and Chemical are completed and the decision tree is throughly evaluated the ccp will will be discovered.

[haytonproduce3]

thanks everyone for the replies.

This is a new position for me at the farm so my experience is low. I just got a haccp training course last month, so i am a bit familiar but i am learning more as i go. I will probably be doing some online courses as well. If you have a recommendation to what courses are good, i am all ears. Once again, thanks for the help.

[Charles.C]

thanks everyone for the replies.

This is a new position for me at the farm so my experience is low. I just got a haccp training course last month, so i am a bit familiar but i am learning more as i go. I will probably be doing some online courses as well. If you have a recommendation to what courses are good, i am all ears. Once again, thanks for the help.

Dear haytonproduce,

There is a thread here somewhere regarding “recommended” US haccp courses which had a link to a website giving a jumbo list of courses (can’t remember if included on-line or not). If I can find it, I will post the link (or welcome anybody else).

I think you will also find the information in the post linked below interesting regarding the haccp manual (1st attachment) and the (following) icd link. (latter is getting slightly old but the haccp basics are still valid and clearly presented).

http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__51550

IMO raw vegetable haccp (both pre-farmgate and post-farmgate) is often going to be tricky regarding CCPs due to no bactericidal steps in the processes which then causes some thought as to how to justify / validate any nominated CCPs. In practice developed haccp plans have split - (a) some traditional haccp presenters like FDA offer no CCPs and list various risk minimisation procedures. (b) ISO 22000 partly solves the problem by creating what it calls OPRPs which work alongside CCPs although this manouevre is not without other complications. © A third (traditional) route is to choose a few (often 1-3) CCPs including activities like a chlorine washing step as earlier posted in this thread. AFAIK, method © is quite commonly used by fresh-cut, US vegetable organisations. Their choice is, I think, partly because naming CCPs helps to focus the plan for members plus an auditorially “acceptable” validation can be presented, eg via options like (i) the chlorinated washing step prevents the significant hazard of micro. cross-contamination between good / poor material or (ii) that an “adequate” bacterial reduction to justify a CCP is possible. (i) is generally easier to validate (I think), (ii) should involve quantitative validation which can get complicated, eg typical / official cooking CCPs are associated with a bacterial reduction of usually 5-6 Log, this level AFAIK is rarely, if ever, achieved for raw vegetables. However the vegetable argument can be presented in terms of the definition of an outputted safe product such that the (validatable) micro. quality of the input material is also then relevant.

I think you can see why some vegetable / fruit organisations like to provide usable haccp plans for their members.

How much the above types of issue may relate to yr situation will obviously depend on yr product / process / flow chart.

Rgds / Charles.C