I work for a warehousing company and have inherited a legacy Seafood HACCP plan. We have some suppliers that use gel packs as a cooling medium in the seafood shipments. Currently, the plan does not have monitoring activities written for this CCP. Thus far I have not been able to find much information on what is considered "adequate" or how to monitor other than thawing.
The FDA hazards and control guide states for fish delivered under chemical cooling media such as gel packs: there is an adequate quantity of cooling media that remain frozen to have maintained product at an internal temp of 40 or below through transit
AND internal temps of fish at the time of delivery is 40 or below.
My question is since this is a visual observation, what is considered adequate if some ice packs are frozen and some are thawed, but product temps below the CCP? I would assume that if the product is below 40 the ice packs did their job.
I should also note these products are still typically shipped on refrigerated trucks.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
EKR