What HACCP is, who must use it, the five preliminary steps and seven principles, and how to make monitoring, records and training work on every shift.
Traditional food safety relied on inspecting finished products. HACCP moves control upstream: instead of hoping to catch unsafe food at the end, you control the steps where hazards can be prevented, eliminated or reduced to safe levels. It is the foundation of most modern food safety systems, retailer requirements and certification schemes.
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For restaurants, commissaries and food producers, HACCP also has a workforce side. Every critical step is carried out by a person on a shift: the cook who checks the internal temperature, the employee who logs the cooler, the supervisor who signs off a corrective action. If those people are not trained, scheduled and checked, the plan exists only on paper.
| Sector | Regulator | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Meat and poultry processing | USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | HACCP plans required for establishments under inspection |
| Seafood processing | FDA | Seafood HACCP regulation |
| Juice processing | FDA | Juice HACCP regulation |
| Most other FDA-regulated food facilities | FDA | Food safety plans with hazard analysis and preventive controls under FSMA, which build on HACCP concepts |
| Retail and food service | State and local health departments | HACCP plans required for certain specialized processes, such as reduced oxygen packaging or curing, under codes based on the FDA Food Code |
Even where it is not required, many customers and certification programs expect a HACCP-based approach. Our guide to FSMA for food businesses explains the FDA preventive controls rules.
The last step is often skipped. Walk the process on the night shift too; it rarely runs exactly the same way as on days.
| # | Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Conduct a hazard analysis | List biological, chemical (including allergens) and physical hazards at each step and decide which are significant |
| 2 | Determine critical control points (CCPs) | Identify the steps where control is essential to prevent or eliminate a hazard, such as cooking or metal detection |
| 3 | Establish critical limits | Set measurable limits for each CCP, such as a minimum internal temperature and time |
| 4 | Establish monitoring procedures | Decide who checks each CCP, how, and how often |
| 5 | Establish corrective actions | Decide what happens when a limit is not met: hold, rework or discard product, and fix the cause |
| 6 | Establish verification procedures | Check that the system works: calibrate thermometers, review records, test products |
| 7 | Establish record-keeping | Keep records of monitoring, corrective actions and verification |
Monitoring is done by front-line employees, often under time pressure. Make it easy to do right:
Records filled in from memory at the end of a shift are a common audit finding and a sign the check did not really happen. Digital records with a time stamp and a photo where useful make that much harder.
When a critical limit is missed, the plan must say exactly what to do. A good corrective action covers four things: bring the process back under control, decide what happens to the affected product, record what happened, and find and fix the cause. For example, if a cooler log shows a temperature above the limit, the employee moves product to a working unit, the supervisor evaluates the affected product against the plan, maintenance repairs the unit, and the event is recorded with times and names.
HACCP works on top of basic good practices, often called prerequisite programs: sanitation, pest control, supplier approval, allergen control, personal hygiene, equipment maintenance and training. If these are weak, the HACCP plan will be overloaded. Use checklists such as the restaurant food safety checklist and kitchen operations checklist to keep them running on every shift.
Every employee who carries out a monitoring step needs to understand the critical limit, how to check it and what to do if it is missed. Keep training records for each person and refresh training when products or equipment change. Schedule enough trained people on each shift so checks are not skipped during the rush, and make sure the night and weekend crews are trained to the same standard. Training is working time and should be paid. The training attendance sheet helps you record who was trained.
Review the plan at least once a year and whenever something changes: a new product, recipe, supplier, piece of equipment or process step, or a food safety incident. Verification activities such as record reviews and thermometer calibration should be scheduled and assigned like any other task.
EZTime helps with the people side of a HACCP program. Monitoring checks, sanitation and verification run as recurring tasks with time stamps and photo proof, training certificates are stored in each digital employee file with expiry reminders, and schedules show who is responsible on each shift. EZTime does not replace your HACCP plan or your regulator’s requirements.
Hazard analysis, critical control points, critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions, verification and record-keeping.
For some sectors, yes: meat and poultry under USDA, and seafood and juice under FDA. Most other FDA-regulated facilities need a food safety plan under FSMA.
Usually only for specialized processes defined by the local food code, but many restaurants use HACCP principles for their food safety program.
A step where control is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a food safety hazard to an acceptable level.
It depends on the regulation and product. Check the rules that apply to you; many require at least one to two years.
Run food safety checks as tasks with time stamps and photos in EZTime. For a team of 15, EZTime starts at about $30 a month ($2 per employee).