Self-monitoring of your activities enables you to control your production process to create a safe product of high quality. Food safety regulations require all food business proprietors to set up a self-monitoring plan based on a risk analysis (HACCP).
A brief description of the most common terms in international regulations for food safety is given below.
The Self-monitoring Plan
The documented plan, based on HACCP, that you put together to meet the demands of the food legislation is called the self-monitoring plan.
HACCP
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, and is a method to identify, evaluate and control the hazards that are risk factors to food safety. It helps you to systematically go through your critical control points to establish necessary routines and preventative measures to eliminate or minimize health hazards. The routines and measures are documented and put together in a plan based on the following 7 principles:
Identify hazards in the production process
Establish the critical control points (CCP)
Determine the critical limits for each control point
Set up procedures to monitor the critical control points, e.g. monitor temperatures
Establish corrective actions to be taken in case a critical limit is exceeded
Set up procedures to control that the system is working properly
Establish procedures for documentation
CCP
CCP is an abbreviation of Critical Control Point. It is a point in your production process at which the potential hazard can be eliminated or minimized.
