Are your food safety control measures good enough?

Identifying and implementing adequate control measures is the only thing that stands between your food business producing safe food or not. Welcome to Week 29 of the HACCP Mentor Food Safety HACCP Challenge. This week the focus is on food safety control measures.

What are control measures?

Before we get started, let’s quickly define a control measure with regards to food safety. Control measures are the actions that you take to minimise, reduce or eliminate a potential hazard from occurring. In the context of a food management system, these potential hazards can relate to either food safety, food quality or food regulatory issues.

Control measures in your food business

Your task for this #FSHChallenge is check that the control measures documented in your hazard analysis and HACCP Plan adequately control the actual hazard identified.

Step 1: Get a copy of your hazard analysis and HACCP plan.

Step 2: Review the hazard / control measure combination to see if they are aligned.

Step 3: Rectify any inconsistencies and update your documents.

Step 4: Implement any adjusted control measures into your food business. Make sure that your implementation includes adequate training, monitoring and record keeping.

Control measures that fail

When control measures are not aligned to the actual hazard you are trying to prevent or control, the consequences can be devastating. Your customers can become sick and the safety of the food your business produces is compromised. Your food business may also be exposed to the risk of legal action.  If you would like to improve your knowledge around the identification of hazards and their control measures I teach this in my HACCP Refresher course.

Common control measures

Some of the most common food safety hazards can be controlled through the implementation of good manufacturing practices (GMP). These include cleaning, pest control, hand washing and other food handler personal hygiene, maintenance, storage practices, calibration, allergen management and temperature control. When you refer to any of these GMP programs in your HACCP plan or hazard analysis, just make sure that the actual program contains the element that will actually control the identified hazard. For example:

Hazard: Contamination of food from cleaning chemicals

Control measure: Store cleaning chemicals separately from food items

Are control measures correctly identified and implemented?

When you have finished this food safety HACCP challenge let me know how you went by leaving a comment below. Did you have the correct control measures allocated to the hazards that you identified? Were there differences between the control measures documented in your initial hazard analysis and those documented in the final HACCP table? Share you experience with the HACCP Mentor community.