4 replies to this topic

[m1774r]

Good morning everyone,

I'm new to the forum and the Food quality industry in general :) I am editing some excessively long HACCPs for a bakery (one for their off-site premises that makes loaves, cakes, etc) and one for their in-house cafe (lasagnes etc).

My question is...I am trying to identify their CCPs and there is not a metal detector on either premises. is this a CCP or not?

To condense the HACCPs into small documents (ideally I'm cutting these from 50+ pages to 7 maximum) I need to designate the hazard control measures as pre-requisites. I was going to use staff training and hygiene schedules.

Does this all sound satisfactory? I'm confused about identifying CCPs, most literature seems to say metal detection in the baking industry is necessary.

Thank you in advance for any help & feedback!

Kelly

[Charles.C]

Dear m1774r,

Welcome to the forum!

To condense the HACCPs into small documents (ideally I'm cutting these from 50+ pages to 7 maximum) I need to designate the hazard control measures as pre-requisites. I was going to use staff training and hygiene schedules.

If you mean that a lot of the current CCPs are specifically hygiene related, yr idea is logical.

The basis of HACCP is risk analysis.If you can demonstrate that there is no significant risk of metal contamination in yr process, you hv justified the absence of a metal detector. This may not be easy to do which is why many auditors expect to see a MD in the line and you can expect a "discussion".

Frankly, if you have not had any training in HACCP yet, now is probably a good idea.

Rgds / Charles.C

[m1774r]

Thank you Charles, I have had a few classes in HACCP and I'm enjoying this task however whoever designed the previous HACCPs have actually got every process stage as a CCP They are as follows;

1 Delivery & receipt
2 Storage
3 Preparation (what I would say is a CCP for foreign bodies)
4 "Physical contamination" This isn't even a step! They've missed out "cold holding",
5 Baking (which is what I would have designated as a CCPfor bacteria)
6. Delivery

I will be recommending Baking and Preparation as the CCPs, I have explained to my employer I need to justify the absence of a MD, apparently the bakers just sieve with their hands....and visual checks. Hmm.

[Charles.C]

Dear m1774r,

Looks like you are well on the way

As you hv obviously deduced, the range of 'acceptable' prerequisites is extensive.

I fogot to mention that there are several old/new threads on bakery/flour/grain processing HACCP, inc some model analyses on this forum, eg
http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__40125

One other aspect of metal detector is that the lack of will probably be more easily accepted by an auditor if comparable establishments to yourself have none also.? A non-gigantic retail establishment is improbable to use I imagine but risk analysis is not always easy to circumvent.

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

In a cafe I would never expect to see a metal detector; apart from the fact your dishes are probably made in metal tins anyway, it's just not practicable. The off-site baking facility might be a different matter and as Charles says, whether it's seen as acceptable by the authorities may, in part be associated with whether competitors of a similar size have them.

But with HACCP it's about risk and if you want to assess the risk yourself, I would first look at maintenance records and audit machinery. Are nuts and bolts missing? How confident are you of your maintenance controls that if bits did fall off the right procedures would be followed? (If not, the solution may be to beef these up.) Secondly, have you ever had any metal complaints? Thirdly, why not trial it? Contact a metal detector manufacturer and test it out, they may hire one to your or lend you one for free if you look as though you might buy one (hint... look enthusiastic even if you're not sure ). See if you do have an issue.

That all said, if you are a manufacturer of any real size, I suspect most EHOs in the UK would expect a metal detector nowadays simply because they are cheap and do the job. Your question is whether you think it's worth the effort to convince them otherwise. The downside to not having one is if you did end up with an enormous bolt in a loaf of bread which reached a consumer, in the UK anyway there's probably very little you could do to convince a court that you'd done everything you could to prevent (ie due diligence) without having a metal detector but as Charles says, that would be something which would be very dependent on size of your business.

What are we talking for a metal detector nowadays? Around £2k?