4 replies to this topic

[mdel888]

HI THERE, WHEN AN AUDITOR ASKS HOW MANY HACCP PLANS ARE IN PLACE? WHAT WOULD BE THE CORRECT ANSWER. 

 

 

I work for the almond industry and I only have 2 lines. 

 

1 line of raw almonds. These could be organic or conventional. Also, these may be sold as unpasteurized or pasteurized depending on country or per customer request. 

 

The other line runs raw almonds with the shell. 

 

So, if an auditor ask how many HACCP plans I have, what am I supposed to reply. 

 

 

I am confused to what that means?

 

Thank you so much in advance. 

[SQFconsultant]

I vote for the truth - when asked we tell the number.

 

Now you may have one for raw, unprocessed (unpasturied) etc and another for pasturied - or you could (as I have seen during my auditing days) have 1 combined.

[Tony-C]

Hi mdel888,

 

 

Welcome to the IFSQN forums

 

As per Glenn’s post, the truth is the only answer and I never known an auditor not look at HACCP Plans during an audit, so they will see for themselves.

 

I would consider that you should have a separate Food Safety (HACCP) Plan for pasteurized and unpasteurized almonds depending on the intended use and specifications.

 

Organic products can generally be controlled by Good Manufacturing Practices with adequate monitoring and verification so separate Food Safety (HACCP) Plans are not always necessary. You do though need to consider legislation and customer requirements.

 

You might find the following topics useful:

 

How to include Organic Activity in HACCP?

https://www.ifsqn.co...ivity-in-haccp/

 

Reference for doing Organic hazard analysis for new steps

https://www.ifsqn.co...-for-new-steps/

Also, see this example for organic products, HACCP--based Organic Control Point (OCP) Program.pdf in post 15 by Charles.C

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[GMO]

 Ah, I wrote a long answer and the system crashed...

 

Basically as far as I understand it, the number of plans is used as part of the audit hours / days calculation.  But I know of nobody who actually leads HACCP teams who understands what they're asking for.

 

I can think of a site I worked at where the answer could be 2-6 depending on how you interpret the question and as most sites who have anything apart from some really unrelated but not complex processes, most people use modular plans and most sites will have divergence and convergence at different points.  Does that make it the same or a different plan?  It's a non sensical question asked by someone who has never worked on HACCP IMO.

 

The question, is as I understand it, a CB one which only matters to them.  All I've done in the past is use whatever number we put on last year's application.  Yep I know.  Not very scientific.

 

Can SQF give any guidance as to what this actually means Glenn?

 

As for food safety, having a modular plan or separate complete documents for pasteurised, unpasteurised, whole nuts etc.  Well to be honest, if you do it well it doesn't matter.  If you do it badly or make mistakes it will matter.  For that reason alone, I always rather not repeat myself.  So if goods intake is shared, I will have that on one part of the plan and diverge at the point the processes diverge.  No point having a plan for intake which is just copied and pasted.  Etc etc.

[GMO]

Oh and I know this is a potential can of worms but Organic / non Organic is, in my opinion and authenticity / quality plan issue, not a HACCP plan thing.  Of course follow whatever standards you are following (for example, in the UK it would be the soil association) but I wouldn't personally include anything about organic within my food safety plan, just as I wouldn't include the risk of Halal / non Halal or meat / vegetarian.  Etc etc.  

 

In the UK, one of the retailers, M&S are advocating a "HACCP style" approach to quality and I think that has merit.  It is often using the same process flows etc but looking for opportunities where ONLY the quality, authenticity etc of the product could be compromised.  Personally if I was going back to organic manufacture, even if I wasn't supplying M&S, or even just for quality, that's the approach I'd take.  The effort isn't likely to be huge, lots of steps won't be significant and it keeps your HACCP plan focused on food safety.