Every food business in the UK must have an effective food safety management system. It keeps the food you handle safe to eat, and it helps the business to comply with food hygiene law.

This Level 2 course explains how a food safety management system based on the principles of HACCP works. It takes you through each step of the system, and shows how you can carry out your own work safely and correctly.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Know the main food hygiene law, and why HACCP is a legal requirement.
• Understand the four main types of food safety hazard.
• Know the seven principles of HACCP.
• Understand why prerequisite programmes must be in place before HACCP is applied.
• Understand what is involved in setting up a HACCP system.
• Know how hazards are identified and controlled.
• Understand why the system must be monitored and reviewed.

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It is an internationally recognised food safety management system that food businesses use to identify, evaluate and control the hazards that pose a significant risk to food safety.

Article 5 of Regulation (EC) 852/2004 states that food business operators must put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure based on the HACCP principles. The type of HACCP system needed depends on the size and nature of the business.

It is your employer’s duty to put the HACCP system in place, but everyone in the food business is responsible for maintaining it.

• Managers and supervisors must make sure that good practice is followed at all times.
• Food handlers must follow the procedures and instructions laid down by their employer.
• Everyone must report problems, such as a fridge running warm or a damaged delivery, straight away.

A HACCP system only works when every member of the team plays their part, on every shift.

HACCP was developed in the 1960s to make sure that food for the first manned space missions was safe before astronauts ate it. Before that, food safety relied mainly on testing finished food, which was too late to prevent harm.

HACCP takes a preventative approach. It looks at what could go wrong at each stage of the process, and puts controls in place before problems occur.

In the 1990s, the Codex Alimentarius Commission set out the international definition of a HACCP system. After a serious E. coli outbreak in Scotland in 1996, it was recommended that all food businesses adopt HACCP, and it later became a legal requirement.

Before going further, make sure you understand these terms:

• Food safety management system: documented procedures setting out what the business must do to make sure its food is safe to eat.
• Food safety: handling, preparing, cooking and storing food so that it is protected from anything that could harm the consumer.
• Food hygiene: controlling harmful bacteria through safe cooking, chilling and cleaning, and by avoiding contamination.
• Contamination: the presence of any objectionable or harmful substance or material in food, whether biological, chemical, physical or allergenic.

• Hazard: anything with the potential to cause harm to the consumer.
• Risk: the likelihood that a hazard will cause harm, and how serious that harm could be.
• Hazard analysis: collecting and evaluating information on every procedure and process that could harm the consumer, including biological, chemical, physical and allergenic hazards.
• Control measure: an action that eliminates or prevents a food safety hazard, or reduces it to an acceptable level.
• Critical control point, or CCP: a stage where control is essential to eliminate a hazard or reduce it to a safe level. A critical limit is set, and if it is breached, corrective action must be taken immediately.

All food businesses in the UK are covered by food law, including:

• The Food Safety Act 1990. It makes it an offence to sell food that is harmful to health, unfit to eat, or not of the nature, substance or quality the consumer would expect.
• The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, with equivalent food hygiene regulations in Scotland and Wales. These are the regulations that are enforced day to day, including the rules on food temperatures.

In Great Britain, Regulation (EC) 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs is assimilated law. In Northern Ireland, EU food law generally applies, subject to Windsor Framework arrangements for eligible GB retail goods. It controls the hygiene of food premises, equipment and food handlers, and requires food business operators to:

• Put in place, implement and maintain food safety procedures based on the principles of HACCP.
• Make sure that the people who develop and manage those procedures are adequately trained.

This means that the legal requirement for a HACCP-based system continues in the UK, and your day-to-day responsibilities are the same.

As well as keeping the business within the law, a good HACCP system helps the business to:

• Prevent food safety incidents, and protect public health.
• Avoid enforcement action and prosecution.
• Avoid costly product recalls.
• Reduce food waste, because less stock has to be reworked or thrown away.
• Build a right first time approach in the kitchen.
• Protect its reputation, and increase customer confidence.
• Reduce complaints.

Compliance with the law is the first reason for having a HACCP system, but it is far from the only one. A robust system protects public health by preventing costly food safety incidents before they happen. Because problems are caught at the critical points, the business avoids enforcement action, prosecution and Closure Orders, and it is much less likely to face an expensive product recall. Less stock has to be destroyed when something goes wrong, so food waste falls and money is saved.

Over time, a well-run system builds a right first time culture, in which staff expect to get each step correct rather than fixing mistakes later. Customers notice the difference. Complaints go down, confidence goes up, and the reputation of the business is protected. A business that can show its HACCP records is also demonstrating, to inspectors and customers alike, a real commitment to food safety, which supports better overall performance.

In the UK, the Food Standards Agency, or FSA, and Food Standards Scotland oversee food law. Local authorities enforce it, through environmental health officers, or EHOs, and trading standards officers.

Authorised officers can:

• Inspect food premises, and take samples for testing.
• Investigate complaints, and cases of food poisoning.
• Give advice and guidance, and take enforcement action where needed.

When a business breaks food law, authorised officers can take formal action:

• A hygiene improvement notice sets out the breach, what must be done to put it right, and the time allowed, which must be at least 14 days.
• A hygiene emergency prohibition notice requires the immediate closure of the business. The officer must then apply to the court within three days for a hygiene emergency prohibition order.

The business can reopen only when the enforcement authority issues a certificate stating that the health risk has been removed. It is a criminal offence to ignore a formal notice or order.

Failing to comply with food law can lead to prosecution. In England and Wales, cases are heard in the magistrates’ courts or the Crown Court, where fines can be unlimited and serious offences can lead to up to two years in prison.

A civil court may also award compensation to anyone affected. Owners can be banned from running a food business, and publicity about a prosecution can seriously damage the business.