HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points)

HACCP is not a certificate. It is a method and a set of documents the plant keeps itself, checked during official food safety inspections. Standards such as IFS Food and BRCGS build their own requirements on top of it and add an external audit, so what gets certified is the standard, with HACCP underneath it.

In practice the team writes the process out step by step: intake, washing, heat treatment, cooling, packing, storage. For each step it names the hazards and picks the places where losing control creates real risk for the consumer. Every such point gets a limit, a way of measuring it, a frequency and an action for when the limit is exceeded. Typical examples are cooking and cold store temperatures, the metal detector, filtration and line cleaning parameters.

Paper tends to be the weak link. Metal detector checks signed off in one go at the end of the shift, a temperature written down "the way it usually is", a correction overwritten in pen with no date or signature. Each of these damages the evidence exactly where it is needed most. Electronic records help as long as they keep the author, the time and the change history; whether an inspector or auditor treats them as sufficient depends on how complete they are and on whether they can be changed after the fact without leaving a trace.

You will recognise the topic if you run a line, a cold store or a packing hall and customers occasionally ask for records from a specific day. Or if the HACCP documentation was written when the plant opened, the process has changed since, and the documents have not.