HACCP Plan for small business

Hello All,

I am new to this site and wonder if anyone would be so kind to point me in the right direction for writing a specific haccp plan for our business needs.

My husband is Italian and is the process of starting a business producing authentic Italian sauces, initially from home, until we expand. We will supply pubs, restaurants, delis as well as directly to the consumer.

We will not be handling any raw products as this is prohibited from home but will be buying cooked meat and pasteurized liquid egg from a qualified supplier if a recipe requires this.

Environmental Health is satisfied with our progress so far but this haccp plan is extremely daunting! I am assisting my husband as English is not his first language and promised him (foolishly it seems after all my research!!) I would create a haccp template specific to our type of business.

Trading standards have approved the labeling and the tests for shelf life are in motion.

Thanking you all in anticipation for any help or advice

Regards Samantha

I'm surprised the EHO haven't been more helpful in giving you some direction. Remember they are there for advice (however, tbh none I've met have been great at HACCP).

The whole point of HACCP is to try and predict what could go wrong and prevent it before it does. Frankly that's it! There are semantics and techniques to ensure it's effective in doing this but basically that's the point.

Now there are two ways to approach this IMO, get in a consultant (expensive for what it is and you will end up with a HACCP plan which you may not understand and can't keep up to date) or get some training yourself (probably as expensive but the good point is that you will know what to do in the future and be able to keep things up to date.)

There is a great guy called Robert Gaze at Campden who is their HACCP trainer. http://www.campden.co.uk/

Campden run training courses but it might not be the best place for you as a very small business, however, I bet Robert would take a call or email from you and give you some great advice on what training and what HACCP plan would be right for you even if you later on don't chose to do it at Campden.

Good luck. That all said, part of me is thinking about going for consultancy in HACCP (due to having a wee 10 week old boy in the next room, I'm not sure my current job will work for me) so if you do need some help let me know!

Samantha, you might find the link below useful, it has a lot of free advice and documents:

Safer food, better business (SFBB) is an innovative and practical approach to food safety management. It has been developed to help small businesses put in place food safety management procedures and comply with food hygiene regulations.

Safer food, better business

Good call Simon - tbh I'm very surprised the EHO didn't point you towards that although from memory, SFBB has a catering bias?

I do remember there being quite a lot of debate at the time that businesses with less that 10 employees did not require a formal HACCP plan although I don't know what was finally decided.

Rosie

I believe all food businesses in the UK need a documented plan based on HACCP principles but that doesn't necessarily mean HACCP.