HACCP Teams: What are their main responsibilities?

Purpose of the HACCP Team

The following segment will discuss more about the HACCP team;

The team has as purpose and responsibilities:

• Carry out a hazard analysis to determine which hazards need to be controlled, what degree of control is required to achieve food safety and what combination of control measures is required.
• Plan and implement processes necessary for the validation of control measures and/or combinations of control measures and to verify and improve the management system for food safety.
• Assess changes in the production process that have a negative effect on food safety.
• Verification of the food safety system.
• Indicate per process step, including all products, all processes and all elements of the prerequisite program on which they have been assessed and motivate whether or not a critical control point (CCP or OPRP) exists. 
• Checking whether the food safety system falls within the scope and whether the scope covers the entire food safety system.
• Make adjustments to keep the food safety system up to date and correct. Either by verification or validation. 
• Management of training for staff in order to ensure that everyone has sufficient knowledge of the necessary food safety-related aspects.
• Determining and verifying the scope. 

The hazard analysis also pays attention to the position in the chain and our suppliers and customers will be taken into account. 

It is essential that the HACCP team has sufficient expertise. The expertise and composition of the HACCP team is laid down in the HACCP team tasks, authorizations, and responsibilities overview. The current composition of the HACCP team means that all necessary knowledge and expertise is available for day * to * day business. For extra specific information, QAssurance B.V. is used. 

The HACCP team carries the approval of the management and is supported where possible with the necessary resources, facilities, and time. 

HACCP meetings

A HACCP team meeting takes place according to a fixed frequency, during which at least it is assessed whether:

• The food safety system is current and effective.
• The measures taken have been adequately implemented / taken.
• New processes and / or products must be or have been assessed.
• Developments in regard to legislation, technology, knowledge, and etc. are of influence. 
• Incidents or new information regarding food fraud or food defense affect us. 

In addition, any calamities and standard exceedances are assessed and possible improvements are determined. The realization of formulated goals is assessed and the cause is investigated if goals are not achieved. Next, measures are defined. 

A report is made of the meetings.

In order to keep the HACCP team, but certainly also the company, informed, the management will make every effort to provide all necessary information. This can include:

• New products;
• New raw materials;
• New additives;
• Recipe adjustments;
• New or changed processes, investments;
• New location of equipment or environment;
• New suppliers of product or service, new services;
• New customer requirements that must be translated to the workplace;
• Changes in cleaning and disinfection (method, resources, frequency, etc.);
• Possible legal changes or changes to standards;
• Changes in packaging and / or packaging material;
• Changes in storage or transportation;
• Changes in the organization, competences, responsibilities, and authorizations;
• Complaints and alerts;
• State of the art, new knowledge, research results;
• New knowledge about food safety hazards and control measures;
• Quality level changes;
• Goals.