HACCP including Prerequisite Programs Mandatory?

Hi All, 

I have recently taken on the responsibility of updating a food safety program for a very small meat further processing facility. We are talking smoked deli meats, jerky, hot dogs and sausages. What I have been dealt is a system put in place by a food safety consulting firm. Where they do have a HACCP system including the required forms for product descriptions, product flow and BCP hazards they have not included a pre-requisite program for the HACCP. What they have been doing is working with a very large and redundant manual which has everything under the sun that could be related to food safety. Whether this manual is related to our processes is neither here nor there. 

My question is should I put in the time and effort to adapt this manual to the formal prerequisite programs that go along with HACCP or try and weed out the manual as it is. They have been passing audits and from what I have discussed with others the auditors and provincial inspector (provincial plant in Canada) are ok with this system. It is broken in my opinion, but not sure if I need to do a gut job or just patches.

Thanks!

Hi there, 

In my opinion, I would start everything from the scratch, I love to investigate and evaluate the system that is already implemented in each facility and improve it as much as I can, but I think the best way is always through assessing every single step of the production process by yourself (and with your HACCP team if you have it) and developing procedures and a new robust system risk based, of course always with the prerequisite programs that must accompany your HACCP system.

Start the HACCP over.... starting with the pre- requisite plan. split it up into manageable chunks so you don't drive yourself mad....

Hi qalearner,

I'm not in Canada but are you not obliged to work within the jurisdiction of FSEP ? Their  haccp requirements seem to force the use of Prerequisites ?

If optional, the crunch questions to changing may relate, as you partially noted, to  -

(a) yr/yr teams's technical expertise.

(b) the amount of work/time involved which obviously relates to the number of haccp plans / complexity / implementation

No need to quote the Engineering cliché but sometimes a fix is unavoidable. :smile:

Yes I would love to start brand new and fresh, but it is a problem of where to best focus my efforts. This is a small company which is rapidly expanding and they want to revamp their processes so that they are in place and ready for more growth. I am leaning towards a complete do over. While a 'fix' would seem to work for the purposes of pleasing the auditors and our customers I think that we need to bite the bullet. 

I am the only one with the expertise to take this on unfortunately. I am pushing for the person who has been helping out with food safety to get some training, but we will see where that goes. 

Hi qalearner,

So is this outside FSEP's area ? Too small perhaps ?

By "fix"  i meant introduce Prerequisites.

Charles C. That is what I am trying to figure out. It's early days for me so I am just trying to get a grasp. Not sure what the difference in FSEP requirements is for our provincial processor vs a larger federal one. 

Charles C. That is what I am trying to figure out. It's early days for me so I am just trying to get a grasp. Not sure what the difference in FSEP requirements is for our provincial processor vs a larger federal one. 

Well, from the website, section 3.1 looks rather definitive.

But if the factory has been chugging along OK so far, regulatory-wise,  it suggests there are options. :smile: