Incorporating HAACP practices into a commercial business model

[Gina Cavaliero]

There is much discussion about HAACP practices and how they might be incorporated into aquaponic commercial operations.  While meat HACCP systems are regulated by the USDA, and seafood and juice are regulated by the FDA, the use of HACCP is currently voluntary in other food industries.

 

I'd like to explore the 7 HAACP principals and how they might relate to Aquaponics.  What should a commercial venture consider when incorporating these principals and what issues might there be that are exclusive to aquaponics?

Here are the 7 principals as outlined on Wikipedia

Principle 1: Conduct a hazard analysis. – Plans determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive measures the plan can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.

Principle 2: Identify critical control points. – A critical control point (CCP) is a point, step, or procedure in a food manufacturing process at which control can be applied and, as a result, a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.

Principle 3: Establish critical limits for each critical control point. – A critical limit is the maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point to prevent, eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level.

Principle 4: Establish critical control point monitoring requirements. – Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure that the process is under control at each critical control point. In the United States, the FSIS is requiring that each monitoring procedure and its frequency be listed in the HACCP plan.

Principle 5: Establish corrective actions. – These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation from an established critical limit. The final rule requires a plant's HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product injurious to health or otherwise adulterated as a result of the deviation enters commerce.

Principle 6: Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended. – Validation ensures that the plants do what they were designed to do; that is, they are successful in ensuring the production of a safe product. Plants will be required to validate their own HACCP plans. FSIS will not approve HACCP plans in advance, but will review them for conformance with the final rule.

Verification ensures the HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities as review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits and microbial sampling and analysis. FSIS is requiring that the HACCP plan include verification tasks to be performed by plant personnel. Verification tasks would also be performed by FSIS inspectors. Both FSIS and industry will undertake microbial testing as one of several verification activities.

Verification also includes 'validation' – the process of finding evidence for the accuracy of the HACCP system (e.g. scientific evidence for critical limitations).

Principle 7: Establish record keeping procedures. – The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing deviations.

 

[Earl ward]

Here is more information on HACCP for produce from New Zealand www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/generic-haccp-models-produ...

[Two Jay]

AFDO/Seafood Alliance HACCP Training Course - This is taking place December 6th - 8th in Petoskey MI.  The cost is only $100 plus lodging, food & travel.  I believe this is very affordable compared to other courses offered.  Also, I think, this is the same group of professionals that did the HACCP training at Growing Power.

The deadline to sign up is Dec. 1st, 2011.

If someone needs more information please feel free to contact me directly.  Regards, James

[Craig Mullins]

I'd love to see some sample Haccp's for aquaponics....