A business must not only work cleanly. It must also be able to show that it does. This is called the business's own checks (betriebliche Eigenkontrolle). It is one of the subjects of Annex 1 to the LMHV, as are traceability and crisis management.
The procedure based on HACCP principles
HACCP stands for “Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points”. Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 requires every food business operator to set up, carry out and maintain permanent procedures based on the HACCP principles.
The seven principles:
- Hazard analysis: What hazards can occur, and where?
- Critical control points (CCPs): At which points can a hazard be prevented, removed or reduced to an acceptable level?
- Critical limits: Which values must be met, for example a core temperature?
- Monitoring: How and how often is it checked that the limits are met?
- Corrective actions: What happens when a limit is missed?
- Verification: How do you check that the whole system works?
- Documentation: How are procedures and results recorded?
The regulation allows flexibility: small businesses do not need extensive paperwork. The documentation must suit the nature and size of the business. Many sectors use guides to good practice that their associations have drawn up.
The basis: good hygiene practice
Before a HACCP plan can work, a business needs a solid basis: clean premises, cleaning plans, pest prevention, training, personal hygiene, temperature control and goods checks. Everything you have learned in this course is part of it.
Example: cooking poultry through
- Hazard: Salmonella and Campylobacter in raw poultry.
- Critical control point: cooking it through.
- Critical limit: a core temperature of at least 72 °C for at least 2 minutes.
- Monitoring: measuring with a thermometer, for every batch or at set intervals.
- Corrective action: keep cooking until the value is reached.
- Documentation: an entry in the log.
Your role in the own checks
- Measure when your business requires it, and write down the results honestly. Never invent values.
- If a value is not right, act as the corrective action says and tell management.
- Take part in training. The operator must make sure that those who look after the procedure are also adequately trained (Annex II, Chapter XII).
- Sign only for what you have really done.
Typical records are temperature logs for chilling equipment and food, cleaning records, goods-received checks, pest logs and training records.
Traceability
Article 18 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 requires businesses to know who supplied them with food and to whom they passed it on: one step back, one step forward. Delivery notes, invoices and batch numbers are important for this. Keep them. Anyone who supplies goods to final consumers does not have to write these down one by one.
Withdrawal and crisis management
- Food that is not safe must not be sold (Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002).
- If a business has reason to think that a food is not safe, it must withdraw it from the market, inform the authorities and, where needed, warn consumers (Article 19).
- A crisis plan (in Annex 1 called “Havarieplan, Krisenmanagement”, emergency plan and crisis management) says who does what: block and mark the goods, inform management and the authority, notify suppliers and customers, document the incident.
- Complaints and illness: If a guest complains or reports having become ill after a meal, take it seriously. Inform management immediately. Do not throw away suspect food. Keep it and mark it until management decides.
Registration
Under Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, food business operators notify their establishments to the competent authority. So anyone who opens a business must report it. Management does this.
Key points
- HACCP means: identify hazards, set control points, monitor limits, take corrective action, document.
- Good hygiene practice is the foundation.
- Traceability means: one step back, one step forward.
- Block unsafe goods and report them immediately. Records must be honest.