Hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) program is not a requirement of the food service industry. Developed for 30 years ago by NASA to manage food safety in space, is HACCP since been final FDA program for controlling food-borne diseases. The HACCP system is efficient because it requires commercial kitchen to identify and trace the points where food is exposed to the agents that can cause disease. Many local boards of health to promote the application of the HACCP SYSTEM, because it is effective in controlling outbreaks and disease, but again, it is not a required program.
So why use the HACCP SYSTEM, if it is not required? Because even one customer makes sick can spell lawsuits and financial ruin for your company. Large institutions that serve thousands of meals on a daily basis like prisons and universities practice HACCP religiously for this very reason. Small independent operators and small, medium and large chains face nothing less amount of risk from food-borne diseases, and many use not yet a HACCP program to control food risks. The purpose of the HACCP system is to provide you with active managerial control over the most critical points relating to food safety in your company.
Principle 1-understanding the hazards and risk factors
This step is also the first part of the acronym HACCP: hazard analysis. The second part, critical control points (CCPs) does not make you a very good thing if you don't know which hazards control. Food-borne diseases originate from three primary groups of risks:
Biological agents: bacteria and bacteria-produced toxins, parasites and viruses.
Physical objects: jewelry, stone, glass, bone and metal fragments and packaging.
Chemical pollution: allergens, cleaning compounds, food additives, insecticides
Food-borne diseases can come from all three of these groups, although the most common and most worrying for restaurateurs, biological pollution. All three groups can be controlled by means of an effective HACCP program. So how do these dangers actually get transferred to food prepared and served in restaurants?
Here are the primary risk factors:
Food from unsafe sources. The restaurant is only one part of a long chain that brings food from the place it was harvested to the diner's table. Unfortunately for restaurants, they are the last link in this chain. This means that they stand to take the blame for food-borne diseases.
Inadequate cooking. In contrast to unsafe sources, restaurants absolutely can and should control how food is prepared.
Improper holding temperatures. Raw food and cooked food must both be stored at the correct temperature (under 41 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to prevent the spread of biological agents.
Contaminated equipment. It is used in a commercial kitchen equipment can easily upload any of the three groups of the dangers to which the above foods just before it is served to a customer.
Poor personal hygiene. Restaurant staff can also easily upload any of the three risk groups for food at the most critical time.
The most common ways to solve the above risks are:
Only buy food product from a reliable, trusted source. Also ensure the proper and safe handling when food arrives at your restaurant.
Always cook food thoroughly. Make sure untreated products you buy like dairy products and fruit juice has been pasteurized or heat treated.
Make sure food is at the correct temperature when you're hot holding, cold holding, cooking or freezing it. Also trademark food product, and follow a first in, first out (FIFO) principle strategy that ensures the oldest product is used first.
Each restaurant encounters these risk factors. In order to carry out a risk analysis in your company, carefully assess where, when, why and how occurs each of the above factors, and which of the three types of risks are involved. When you have a complete list of hazards and risks, you can begin to develop a process to addressing and minimize these problems.
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