Dear Simon,
Interesting question.
In this context, I presume GAP = Good Agricultural Practice . (Also as in EurepGAP.) I saw it semi-defined as -
"Good management practices refers to general practices to reduce microbial food safety hazards. The term may include both "good agricultural practices" used in growing, harvesting, sorting, packing, and storage operations and "good manufacturing practices" used in sorting, packing, storage, and transportation operations."
This is later amplified as -
Basic Principles
Use the general recommendations in this guide to develop the most
appropriate good agricultural and management practices for your
operation.
This guidance document is based upon certain basic principles and practices associated with
minimizing microbial food safety hazards from the field through distribution of fresh fruits and
vegetables.
By identifying basic principles of microbial food safety within the realm of growing,
harvesting, packing, and transporting fresh produce, users of this guide will be better prepared to
recognize and address the principal elements known to give rise to microbial food safety concerns.
Principle 1. Prevention of microbial contamination of fresh produce is favored over reliance on
corrective actions once contamination has occurred.
Principle 2. To minimize microbial food safety hazards in fresh produce, growers, packers, or
shippers should use good agricultural and management practices in those areas over which they
have control.
Principle 3. Fresh produce can become microbiologically contaminated at any point along the
farm-to-table food chain. The major source of microbial contamination with fresh produce is
associated with human or animal feces.
Principle 4. Whenever water comes in contact with produce, its source and quality dictates the
potential for contamination. Minimize the potential of microbial contamination from water used
with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Principle 5. Practices using animal manure or municipal biosolid wastes should be managed
closely to minimize the potential for microbial contamination of fresh produce.
Principle 6. Worker hygiene and sanitation practices during production, harvesting, sorting,
packing, and transport play a critical role in minimizing the potential for microbial contamination
of fresh produce.
Principle 7. Follow all applicable local, state, and Federal laws and regulations, or corresponding
or similar laws, regulations, or standards for operators outside the U.S., for agricultural practices.
Principle 8. Accountability at all levels of the agricultural environment (farm, packing facility,
distribution center, and transport operation) is important to a successful food safety program.
There must be qualified personnel and effective monitoring to ensure that all elements of the
program function correctly and to help track produce back through the distribution channels to the producer
( http://www.foodsafet...at/prodguid.pdf )
An EU interpretation is here -
http://www.fao.org/p...iles/Y8704e.htm
(examples in Annex)
It's not really my "field" but seems to me that GAPs overlap HACCP Pre-Requisite Programs (or even potential CCPs possibly) however I saw this comment in another link which I find confusing -
"31. If a grower implements FDA's "Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables," also referred to as FDA's Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) guidance document, is it considered a HACCP control measure?
No. However, juice processors are encouraged to work with growers of the produce they use to produce juice to evaluate and modify agricultural practices consistent with FDA's GAP guidance."
( http://vm.cfsan.fda....mm/juiceqa.html )
Maybe any fruit or vegetable people here know more on this ??
Rgds / Charles.C
added - after bit more reading, looks like GAP is running parallel to HACCP although approving the HACCP principle (??). One set of European GAP standards is from EUREPGAP and available as (free) dwl from their site, eg -
http://www.eurepgap....h/news/317.html
It's slightly old but various systems, BRC, EUREGAP, HACCP are compared here (Partic. the 1st paper)
http://www.apo-tokyo...apers_HACCP.pdf.
In UK, the "Assured Produce Scheme" was also mentioned in this subject area.
added (2) apologies to Narongchai!, I forgot to mention his running thread on EUREPGAP -
http://www.ifsqn.com...amp;#entry15115
added (3) some idea of the inter-relationships of relevant standards can be seen in these chunks extracted from 2nd paper in penultimate link above ( this is circa 2002, no I22k yet) -
"Clients in Europe expect products to come from factories, which have a western quality
management system in place. No horticultural products will be accepted from farms, which
do not follow the principles of EUREP GAP, and packinghouses, which are not HACCPcertified.
As far as food safety is concerned they have the legal support, since the EU will
make HACCP mandatory for all food handlers and processors by January 2004 (EU Directive
00/43, 2000). This also applies to facilities outside of Europe, if products are destined for a
member state of the EU.
Table 1. Quality Management Systems and Areas of Application
(System-Strategic Purpose-Target Sector)
GAP (EUREP)-Farm management including principles of integrated production-Primary agriculture
ISO 9000-Continuity of production and quality-Agriculture industry and service
ISO 14000-Contribution to global sustainability-Agriculture industry and service
HACCP-Food safety-Food industry
BRC-Food safety, document control andTraceability-Food processing and food handlers
SQF-Food safety quality improvement-Primary and secondary agriculture
SCMa-Harmonization in supply chain-Supply chain of goods
--
ECRb-Time efficiency-Retailers and suppliers
Notes: a Supply Chain Management; and b Efficient Consumer Response – a system to
manage faster supply; more frequently and in smaller units.
(The above paper also has an excellent discussion with many practical comments of the significance of pre-requisites in tthe HACCP system for a fruit packing set-up )
Edited by Charles.C, 30 March 2007 - 07:51 AM.
