HACCP in Germany

Well, firstly, we aren´t a real "food packaging" plant...we produce and print corrugated and solid fibre board boxes for a big candies plant here in germany. Neither our employees nor our products are in direct contact with food. Nevertheless this candies-plant is trying to adquire a HACCP-certification, so it is our duty now, as important supplier, to develop a safety and quality system for our plant.

(For your further information : The candies are packed in plastic packages and these plastic bags are put in our boxes which are delievered to supermarkets. So if our boxes contain any kind of insects, glasspieces etc. also the food in the plasticbags can be "affected". )

The problem is that there is not a direct law nor proper recommendations neither concrete information about this theme in germany... So we would be very pleased if you could help us in ANY way.

The candies-plant will send an auditor who will check the hygienic situation here very soon.

What kind of documentation must we establish?
Should we follow your "HACCP study guide"?
What kind of hygienic measures must we take?
Precisely?!

I hope you can answer me as soon as possible..it´s really urgent and very important for the survival of our factory, I hope you can understand me and excuse my restricted english.

With kind regards,
Sandra

Hi Sandra,

Firstly, YOU ARE a real 'food packaging' plant; OK maybe not direct food contact but definitely food packaging.

The first thing to say is 'Don't Panic!' If you can demonstrate to both the auditor and your customer that you have embarked on the project, you recognise and understand your obligations and have a clear and structured plan for implementing a hygiene management system, then they must be prepared to allow you the time to achieve this, especially if this is the first time that they have required you to develop such systems.

The BRC/IoP Packaging Standard has been adopted widely in the UK and globally by packaging manufacturers who supply packaging to UK retailers. The Standard is tried and tested and clearly establishes the requirements of a hygiene management system. I would urge you to use this as your reference for implementing your system whether you intend to apply for Certification or not.

There are two sets of requirements contained within the standard, Category A and Category B (higher level/more requirements). Firstly you need to determine whether you are Cat A or B to see which requirements apply. You are probably Category A unless your packaging is taken into the candy factory whilst there are open or unprotected food products around.

If you already have ISO 9000 or a similar management system this will be of help as you should already have document control, control of specifications etc. in place.

To sum up:

1. Buy a copy of the standard (available in German) Buy Standard here

2. Carry out a gap analysis of your current systems against the requirements of the standard

3. Carry out a hazard analysis (The HACCP study guide is one method of doing this)

Now that you are a member of the forum you can download lots of documents that you may find useful including a Gap Analysis Checklist, an example HACCP Study and various supporting procedures and documents.

Free document downloads

Please feel free to post as many questions as you like as you work through the project and we will help where we can.

By the way your English is fantastic.

Regards,
Simon