Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 01 | SUMMER 2014
10 Years with HACCP: What to do Next?
Europe‘s Track from Safety to Quality of Food
Petr Baudyš, QSL s.r.o.
This spring it will be 10 years since the regulation, that unified
legislation,monitoring compulsory
implementation of the HACCP system into food premises, has entered
into force within the EU. The longtime process of integrating American
invention into European food law
was accomplished. This is a good
opportunity to think about what the
concept brought for inhabitants of
the old continent; what problems it
has solved; and, on the other hand,
what problems it could not fully
solve.
Brief history of HACCP
I would like to start by emphasizing:
We do not have anything better than
HACCP! The system of hazard analysis and setting the critical control
points (Hazard Analysis and Critical
Control Points) was invented in
the 1960s by NASA intelligence to
achieve the highest possible level of
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food safety on spaceship boards. The
system, however, proved to be so
useful that it started to be gradually
applied at production and distribution of food intended for us, the ordinary earthlings. In 1993, the committee for Codex Alimentarius approved
an important document titled the
„Codex Directive for Application of
HACCP System in Practice“ and the
European Union approved a similar
directive in the same year. Eleven
years later, compulsory implementation of HACCP systems in food
premises was legislatively unified on
the territory of the European Union.
What is the system of critical control points? Why it proved its worth?
The success of HACCP system lies in
its simplicity and efficiency. The key
conditions that must be complied
with are set for each process in the
production or distribution of food
so that subsequent consumption of
the product is safe. Described in a
simplified way, these are the critical control points. Each food has,
for example, certain temperature
at which it must be stored. If the
temperature rises above the critical
limit, consumption of such food becomes hazardous. It also has to be
stored under certain air humidity
and it also has a certain shelf life.
Food producers and retailers must
carry out the hazard analysis in the
food they treat, based on which
they set critical conditions (points) of
safety and adhere to them. Possible
inspection focuses on these points.
The system is simple for producers
and retailers – they know exactly
what they have to pay attention to.
The HACCP system is simple for inspection authorities too – they know
exactly what to inspect.
There is a high level of probability
for the final consumers that the food