HACCP Plan Certification

Hey Y'all!

Happy Friday!! Got a quick question, I have a grower that wants to put in place a HACCP plan for a dry bean packing facility, currently the are not considered a Food Packing Facility under the FDA and are not being regulated by them. It is considered part of their farming operation. They are GAP and GHP certified within the Harmonized GAP Certification/USDA. They want their HACCP Plan to be audited and certified. Who would you recommend we have do the 3rd party audit? 

Thanks!!

Hi calaggal,

Some factors to consider:

•  if the dry bean packing facility is undergoing this HACCP plan audit and certification process at the behest of a customer/client, e.g., Costco, Tesco, Trader Joe, Whole Foods Market, etc., make sure you have it done by an audit company that is on the list of approved audit companies. Larger customers frequently have a list of approved 3rd party audit companies and will not accept companies not on the list.
• if you are also hiring a consultant to aid in the building of the HACCP plan and training of the employees it can be advantageous to use the same 3rd party for the consultancy, the training and the audit. It helps continuity, consistency and they will be less likely to find fault with a HACCP plan they participated in building. There may be value added services like web training, web reporting of CAPA, GANTT chart tracking of progress, etc. You may or may not want to use or pay for these services.
• sometimes the parameters of a HACCP certification audit have requirements for a certain number of months of records e.g, 12 months of records to prove out that the plan is working. This is certainly a question to ask as you investigate. It often takes a year of following a HACCP plan after the implementation date before a third party would be willing to perform the audit. There may be stipulations for the time parameters you have to correct and document any non-conformance the auditor may find. There may be stipulations of how soon you can re-apply and be re-audited should you fail the audit/certification.
• every 3rd party HACCP certification company e.g., NSF, Silliker, AIB, SCS, Steritech, SGS, SAI Global, etc., have their "characteristic attributes". Some are considered better trained, have less strict or stricter standards, tend more towards documentation than inspection for example. Generally, 3rd party companies make the audit criteria available ahead of time. If you obtain the criteria (the written standard by which you will be evaluated) of say 3 different companies, you may then perform a comparison before choosing.
• ascertain to what standard the HACCP plan should be written and audited against, e.g., in accordance with Codex alimentarius or some other standard.
• when an auditor has to fly in from back East, say out to California, you often have to pay for the flight, hotel, rental car, meals on top of the fee for the audit services. You may want to go with a local company so the auditor simply drives in, performs the audit and goes home.

Awesome!!! Thank you for your advice!!!