I am a ship supplier who works in most of the food line, I will categorize the goods into 4 parts:
1. Fresh fruits and Vegetables. (I have chilling room to store)
2. Frozen meat, chicken and fish (I have freezer room to store)
3. Canned and final packed products like cereals, corned beef, milk, mineral water, coffee, tea etc..
4. Spices and herbs. This category goes through repacking, it means that I purchase the spices in bulk like 10 or 15 kg and then repack in 0.50 kg and 1 kg and use the vacuum machine and then put my label. (I have special packaging area).
As I am not aware of some of the terms in the HACCP, like validation and hazard and control action..
I am kindly asking help of the expert in this forum of how I can get started, since my project doesn’t contain any cooking or processing, I think it will be easier.
Dear long beach,
If I understand your business well then you buy all products mentioned above (product categories 1-4) and you simply keep them in temperature controlled storage rooms (category 1&2) or at ambient storage conditions (category 3 and 4).
I am not an expert in
HACCP studies but I am well familiar with the basic concepts and steps.
- I suggest that first of all you create the flow diagram (as detailed as possible) for each product category .
- Then for each process step I would prepare a list with all possible hazards (i.e. biological, chemical, physical) that may occure in your products.
Your product suppliers (or literature) could possibly provide you with some information especially regarding the biological hazards.
- Use the
HACCP decision tree to decide which are the
CCPs (critical control points) in your processes.
- Then for each
CCP I would write down all possible control measures (for example control of temperature and relative humidity) in cold or refrigerated storage.
- For each control parameter (e.g. temperature) establish the critical limits which are acceptable for the safety of the products.
- For the monitoring of your
CCPs write for each
CCP how you control it and the frequency of each control.
- Finally write down the corrective actions in case that there is deviation from the critical limits (for example what you do if the temperature in the storage rooms rises above the safe limit).
In my opinion the above mentioned steps are a good start. Of course there is more involved in a complete
HACCP study (e.g. verification procedures) but I suggest that you start understanding your processes by working on the above mentioned steps.
There is also plenty of literature in the internet regarding the basics of a
HACCP study (e.g. Codex Alimentarius-
HACCP).
I hope that this information gives you a start.
Regards
Yannis
