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New HACCP web tool for your business

Posted: 30 May 2014 | The Food Standards Agency | No comments yet

MyHACCP offers free step-by-step online guidance to food manufacturing and other food businesses on how to make sure you’ve got effective HACCP-based controls…

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MyHACCP offers free step-by-step online guidance to food manufacturing and other food businesses on how to make sure you’ve got effective HACCP-based controls. Check out the tool at www.food.gov.uk/myhaccp

Every food business has a responsibility to ensure the food they supply is safe to eat and the law requires operators to have an effective food safety management system in place based on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.

The FSA’s new and free to use MyHACCP tool is intended to support small food manufacturing businesses develop their HACCP based food safety management system. It guides you through a step-by-step process to identify food safety hazards and controls and provides you with a downloadable Adobe PDF output of your HACCP study and HACCP based controls.

Who is the site for?

Businesses which will benefit from MyHACCP include small food manufacturing businesses (with fewer than 50 employees) in the following areas:

  • meat processing and meat products
  • dairy products and cheese production
  • liquid milk and cream production
  • fish and shellfish processing, and fish and shellfish products
  • fruit and vegetables processing/preserving
  • confectionery products
  • prepared meals
  • sauces and condiments
  • drinks manufacture and water bottling

HACCP principles are generic. This means the tool is useful to other types of food businesses where in-depth consideration of hazards and controls is needed.

MyHACCP works for your business

Preparing an effective food safety management system is a worthwhile investment to ensure food safety, consumer protection and compliance with the requirements of food law.

MyHACCP provides you with a suite of downloadable template documents to support your controls, including monitoring record sheets, to help you embed your HACCP study and bring it to life. The tool also provides guidance and links to relevant information to help you complete the process. If you need to review or change your study to accommodate new products or a change in processing method, simply log back into MyHACCP, call up your stored HACCP study, amend it and print the new version.

John Barnes, Head of Local Delivery at the Food Standards Agency, said: ‘MyHACCP is a free tool to help small food businesses make sure they have an effective food safety management system in place. Many food businesses we’ve spoken to have asked for more support to help them ensure and demonstrate that they have HACCP under control – this tool will help businesses to develop their system and embed it into their everyday practices.’

Chris Grimes, Director of the trade association group SALSA, said: ‘A thorough HACCP study and well executed plan are fundamental for a successful food safety management system and certification to food safety standards. MyHACCP provides a useful guide to follow the process and a helpful tool for recording the study and producing a practical plan.’

Barbara Gallani, Director of Regulation, Science & Health at the Food and Drink Federation, said: ‘Food safety is of paramount importance to food and drink businesses operating in the UK. We welcome the launch of this new tool to help small and medium sized producers to develop and maintain robust food safety management systems based on HACCP principles. FDF will publicise the availability of this new resource to its SME members.’

To sign up for an account, visit this link.