HACCP for Secondary & Tertiary Food Plastic Trays/Pallets

Hi All

I am working on reviewing my companies procedures, and have touched on HACCP, Does anyone know of any place I can get guidelines for secondary & tertiary food packaging, we supply returnable transit packaging, i.e. Plastic trays (crates) and Plastic Pallets to food companies, part of that services is washing the packaging. I'm properly getting a bit muddled up here, but I’m finding it hard to put any structure together in regards to HACCP as in theory, we don’t actually manufacture anything and the process is fairly simple, dirty tray in, wash, dry, wrap and send back out.

I contacted the FSA for information, and as soon as I said we don't manufacture I started getting passed from man to man, and never got a straight answer.

Any help or information on this subject would be really welcome

I don't know of any specific published guidelines for tray and pallet washing but the general principles of HACCP/Hazard Analysis will apply. If you are not aware, contract container washing is now within the scope of the BRC Storage and Distribution Standard.

There are many sources available which lay out the general principles of Hazard Analysis but here are a few pointers.

Think of it this way.

Your product is a washed, clean container. You will have (or should have!) criteria for defining how clean they are - micro results, visual standards, absence of residual cleaning chemicals etc

Your basic process flow is the receipt and storage of dirty containers, washing, rinsing, storage and distribution of clean containers.

Identify the hazards at each step. Your major hazards will be uncleaned containers coming out of the washer or residual cleaning chemicals

Assess the likelihood and severity of the hazards at each stage to determine if any of the steps is critical.

Define the controls to reduce the hazards and monitoring systems including defined limits.

Establish corrective action procedures for when the limits are not achieved.

Document the procedures and monitoring.

The above is clearly a very quick summary of Hazard Analysis and I haven't touched on any prerequisites. I have audited container washing plants in the UK and Europe and the CCPs basically come down to the temperatures through the washer, chemical concentration/conductivity and absence of residual chemicals

Hope this helps

Thanks,

That was the line of thought I was looking at, but just wanted to get a second view on it, before rushing head long into it incase I wasted days.