Keeping Clean With HACCP
Being safe in the kitchen can mean a lot more than wearing cut protective gloves and keeping your knives from getting dull. Dangerous food temperatures and cross contamination can mean sickness like E. Coli poisoning or even Staphylococcus. Prevent sickness by using the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) seven principles.Conduct a hazard analysis – Determine what food safety hazards your food service business has or could have and recognize the measures you can use as to prevent such hazards. For example: If you own a buffet restaurant one of the obvious hazards would be keeping foods at proper temperatures. A measure you could take to ensure dangerous food temperatures is to have an efficient working steam table pan and regularly checking the temperatures of foods with a calibrated thermometer.
Identify critical control points – A critical control point is a step or procedure in which a food safety hazard can be prevented or eliminated. What CCPs apply to your business? For example: A restaurant will have a CCP for the chicken they cook. Chicken must have a temperature of 165 degrees internally before it can be served. The testing of the chicken with a thermometer is a CCP because it prevents the cook from sending out a piece of chicken that isn’t cooked to temperature, thus helping to avoid sickness.
Establish critical limits for each CCP – Each CCP must have its guidelines and limits. We will use chicken as an example once again. The critical limit for the CCP of checking the chicken would be 165 degrees. The critical limit for the checking of hot holding foods would be 140 degrees.
Establish critical control point monitoring requirements – Critical control points must be checked on a regular basis, at least once or twice a day. Have the procedures and how frequently to do them listed on your HACCP plan.
Establish corrective actions – When the worse happens and your temperatures are off you must have a plan to correct what is causing the problem. For instance, if you’re finding that your hot well cannot keep your meatballs and sauce hot enough anymore, the plan would be to replace it with a working model. Another example would be if your batch of soup isn’t lowering down and out of the temperature danger zone fast enough. The plan for this would be to use a blast chiller or cold paddle to aid the soup down to the accepted 40 degrees within 4 hours. Establish procedures for making sure the HACCP system is working as intended – Simply following your HACCP plan isn’t enough; you must make sure this plan is working for your establishment. Go over your establishment’s HACCP plan and verify it’s working by taking microbial tests. Inspectors will also take these tests.
Establish record keeping procedures – Record all of your procedures, CCPs, issues, what was done to fix said issues, and when each test was done. Knowing this history will help you keep an eye on the efficiency of your equipment as well as aid your health inspector.
Following the seven principles will greatly help in keeping your food service establishment safe to eat at and health department approved. After all, who would want to dine at a restaurant with a horrible health score or reports of food poisoning? Stay clean, reduce cross contamination, and have a plan!
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