What is the severity of a hazard?

Using the concept of HACCP, one of the principles (Principle 1) is to identify potential hazards and to further determine the significance of that potential hazard. When we want to work out the ‘significance’ of a hazard we need to determine both the likelihood and the severity of that hazard happening. In this post, I want to focus on severity. 

Severity of a hazard: another word for consequence

Severity may also be known as ‘consequence’. When assessing a potential hazard you are asking ‘what would be the impact to the consumer / the customer / the media / my business  if this hazard were to occur?’ You can also consider the economic consequence that the hazard may have to all of your stakeholders, including your own business.

The severity of a hazard can be very difficult to assess and is usually determined on a scale of insignificant to catastrophic. Regardless of whatever words you choose to use to rate severity, you need to make sure that your definitions of these words are clear and descriptive. By doing this, all members of your HACCP team who use the risk assessment tool should be on the same page.

How do I know what the consequence of a hazard would be?

There are different methods in finding out what the consequence or severity of a hazard may be. The general knowledge of your HACCP team members should be the first point of call. If the team does not know or is unsure of the consequence / severity of the identified hazard, professional advice should be obtained. You can also consult past records and relevant published literature on reputable government health websites.

Severity Ratings

The most common words to distinguish the severity of a hazard by the food industry include catastrophic, extreme, very high, medium, minor, low, negligible, and insignificant. Severity ratings usually relate to illness, magnitude and duration of the hazard on a consumers health.

As a general rule, the risk assessment tool that I use includes a 5 x 5 table which includes five different severity ratings. My aim is to assess severity of health and business consequences if potential hazards are not controlled. As previously stated, definitions for each of the words that you use need to be as descriptive as possible.

Here is an example of what I use for my clients:  You can also get copies of other HACCP templates here

(Please note that this table forms part of my overall risk assessment tool)

HACCP Mentor Food Safety Severity Table

5 thoughts on “What is the severity of a hazard?”

  1. Hi Amanda.
    Thank you for sharing your information. I would like to know where did you obtain the data for this classification, also I don´t understand what is the difference between the first two cathegories in both cases the damage is severe. I really appreciate your comments.

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