I am wondering if anyone has experience in loosening their CCP critical limits on their HACCP plan specifically under SQF (level 2).
We are a small (about 50 employees total) dry ingredient mix company working with baking mixes and hot cocoa, and have 1 CCP which is metal detection.
We package in sewn bags, canisters, and poly bags, and work with 5 allergens (Egg, Milk, Soy, Tree nut, and Wheat). In the past we have used either metal detectors or X-Ray machines (only able to find metal given product density and characteristics) at our current critical limits.
About 4 years and several QA managers ago we set our metal detection limits at 1.0 mm FE and non-FE and 1.5 mm Stainless steel, and are looking at replacing the current detection equipment. During this purchasing process, our maintenance department discovered that we would have a substantial financial (about 25%) and equipment foot print savings by increasing our critical limits up to 2.0 mm for all 3 categories. The equipment foot print savings would allow us to reduce the amount of time and distance the open packaging travels between metal detection and sealing (from about 8-10 feet down to 3 feet) and our risk assessment shows that additional risk is minimal.
My questions are how badly does it look when you loosen up your critical limits, and what are the physical contaminate critical limits that others are using in their facilities?