How good is your visitor access control policy?

In this week’s Food safety HACCP Challenge, visitor and contractor access is under the spotlight.  Site security should be paramount to ensure the overall safety of your food products. As part of this security, procedures for visitor access should be documented and implemented.

The Challenge – Week 6

This week I would like you to review and challenge your current visitor and contractor access.

How to do it

Step 1. Grab a copy of your Contractor  and Visitor Access Conrol procedures

Step 2. Check to see if your visitor access control policy and procedures covers things like:

• Areas they can access (accompanied and unaccompanied)
• How is their access recorded
• Any induction training required
• Other company policies and procedures are they required to follow
• Exit procedures
• Accident reporting

Visitor Access Control

One of the methods of controlling visitor access is to implement a sign-in procedure.  The most common method is to get all visitors and contractors to sign-in when they first enter a food business.   The key information that you want to collect is:

• Who they are
• Where they are from
• Why were they visiting
• Who are they there to visit
• When did they visit eg. Date, times

If you don’t have a visitor sign-in form click here to get one.

PS: A ‘visitor’ to your business can be defined as being any person who does not work for your food business or in simpler terms – is not on the payroll.

Challenge the system

If you want to step this #FSHChallenge up to the next level, why not try and challenge the current system.  Organise someone who does not normally come to the site (maybe a family member of someone in management) and see if they can access the site or how far they can go.

This is often a little test that I do as an auditor. Instead of going to the reception, I will see how far I can make it into the site before someone questions me. I am surprised at times how far I can really go. On one occasion I managed to get to the point of walking around in the production areas with a brief case before I was stopped.

Feedback

I hope that you are enjoying the HACCP Mentor Food Safety HACCP Challenges. You can leave a comment below to let me know how you went with this one.