2.6.1 - How long should a HACCP Review take?
Hi All,
We've got a non conformance related to timing on annual review of the HACCP plan, in auditors opinion 1.5h hour was not sufficient enough. Any thoughts?
Ooh that's tough! There is nothing in the standard which says how long a review needs to be so from a pure compliance view, I think this is a bit naughty of the auditor.
BUT as a technical person do I think a 90 minute review once a year is enough? No. I can't think of any HACCP plan I've ever worked on where the review has been that short and I bet it's not that short for you either because most people have a very rigid interpretation of the word "review". What I do is turn every HACCP meeting into a review. In this meeting, we ask all the questions required to be asked by the BRC in your review process, except because HACCP is always changing, we end up proving we actually review our HACCP plans as a minimum 6 times a year (and often much more) so our "review" is therefore a minimum of 6 hours p.a. when actually we've done nothing more than we would do just to keep the plan up to date.
If you have not made any major changes to your production flow, there is no reason for a HACCP review to take that long.
If you have not made any major changes to your production flow, there is no reason for a HACCP review to take that long.
I agree with Setanta, if you haven't made any major changes or are not looking to make any major changes then the review shouldn't take that long. Even if it was an internal audit of your HACCP plan I struggle with an auditor saying something didn't take enough time as long as it's not 10 minutes. If you're well organized you're going to be more efficient.
Surely the most important factor is the quality of the content in terms of the review agenda and records / action points.
I've been to very long useless meetings and also very short and productive ones.
Thanks a million :)
I'm not sure the review can just be 10 minutes if you're reviewing a year. Remember that you should really be reviewing verification data as well as part of your review, not just "is it up to date?"
We literally have the following questions on our HACCP meeting minutes and we ask them of ourselves each time we have a meeting:
Has there been or do we think there may be coming up...?
• change in raw materials or supplier of raw materials
• change in ingredients/recipe
• change in processing conditions, process flow or equipment
• change in packaging, storage or distribution conditions
• change in consumer use
• emergence of a new risk (e.g. known adulteration of an ingredient)
• a recall
• new developments in scientific information associated with ingredients, process or product.
This question bothered me though so I checked the interpretation guideline. There is nothing which says a minimum time. Also you could argue that the meeting time does not necessarily reflect the time actually spent reviewing it as the attendees also prepared for the meeting. It's possible this is appealable if you want to go that far but if I'm honest I never bother unless it changes the "score".
I would agree with GMO, my annual review probably takes a full month to perform (done in sections throughout the year) My program has to meet FSEP requirements, where by there are 7 sections each with 5-8 subsections with records attached to each sub section as well as process flow, ingredients labelling etc etc etc.
The FSEP manual that I follow actually has instructions on what an annual reassessment MUST entail.
I know its not BRC, but the link below may be helpful
Should you also include a review of relevant customer complaints, internal defect, incidents and out of specification results in the HACCP review?
I have always focused my Annual haccp review on (a) analysing Corrective actions/RCA/implications/trends over the year , (b) Relevant local-international, FS events, eg disasters, in my specific category over the year and their direct/indirect implications if any, (c) Revalidations where undertaken.
Never less than a Day to organize/analyse/predict.
Semantically a "Review" is surely indeterminate unless defined otherwise.
Should you also include a review of relevant customer complaints, internal defect, incidents and out of specification results in the HACCP review?
Yes we do that and I've just realised it's not on the BRC list which is odd (we've also added things from other standards over the years). It's vital to make sure you are recording that you're reviewing the verification checks somewhere.
I was thinking though that at least part of your HACCP review actually could overlap with your management review?
Hi marzena,
I'm unclear as to the "BRC 2.6.1" you refer.
Is this what you meant ?
2.14 REVIEW THE HACCP PLAN
The HACCP food safety team shall review the HACCP plan and prerequisite programmes at least annually and prior to any changes which may affect product safety. As a guide, these may include the following, although this is not an exhaustive list:
• change in raw materials or supplier of raw materials
• change in ingredients/recipe
• change in processing conditions, process flow or equipment
• change in packaging, storage or distribution conditions
• change in consumer use
• emergence of a new risk (e.g. known adulteration of an ingredient)
• following a recall
• new developments in scientific information associated with ingredients, process or product.
Appropriate changes resulting from the review shall be incorporated into the HACCP plan and/or
prerequisite programmes, fully documented and validation recorded.