Important Concepts in Food Safety
CCP, PRP and OPRP
Many food safety practitioners do find the terms ‘PRP’, ‘OPRP’ and ‘CCP’ confusing because of their basic similarities.
PRP, OPRP & CCP are all categories of control measures. In the context of food safety and according to the International Standards Organization (ISO), a control measure is defined as an action or activity that can be used to prevent or eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level.
Critical Control Point (CCP) Critical Control Point is defined by ISO as a step in the process at which control can be applied and is essential to prevent, eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level. Note the phrase ‘a step in the process’; the phrase differentiates a CCP from the general control measure, as it relates specifically to a step in the process, and not a general activity or action.
A CCP must be designed in such a way that it is able to actually apply a control else cannot be referred to as a CCP.
Prerequisite Program (PRP)
PRPs as defined by ISO are the basic conditions and activities necessary to maintain a hygienic environment throughout the food chain which are suitable for the production, handling and provision of safe final products and safe foods for human consumption. PRPs are of different varieties depending on the particular product and process. The following are examples of PRP’s in a food manufacturing environment:
- construction and layout of buildings
- lay-out of premises, including workspace and employee facilities
- supplies of air, water, energy and other utilities
- supporting services, including waste and sewage disposal
- the suitability of equipment and its accessibility for cleaning and maintenance
- management of raw materials, supplies, disposals and handling of products
- measures for preventing of cross-contamination
- cleaning and sanitizing
- control of pests
- hygiene of personnel etc.
It should be noted that, PRP’s are usually general to the process and not focused on any particular step in the process. Their failure does not necessarily lead to an immediate food safety risk. Their failure over time does result to a critical change which may lead to food safety risk.
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Operational Prerequisite Program (oPRP)
ISO 22000 defines OPRP as a control measure identified by the hazard analysis as essential in order to control the likelihood of introducing food safety hazards and/or the contamination or proliferation of food safety hazards in the product(s) or in the processing environment. OPRPs are specific actions relating to the process, although not being critical for food safety, but they are essential in reducing the likelihood of specific hazards occurring.
OPRP is not an intrinsic step and can be removed from the process and a company can practically still produce relatively safe products.
For example, metal detection in a process designed to reduce the likelihood of a hazard reaching the consumer.
HACCP
HACCP represents Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. It is a system for reducing the risk of food safety hazards, requiring that potential hazards are identified and controlled at specific points in the process. These hazards can be classified as biological, chemical or physical.
Why HACCP?
Concern over the increase of food-borne illness throughout the industry and ways of eliminating it is a key reason for the implementation of HACCP.
Building a HACCP System
Implementing a HACCP System requires implementing both Prerequisite Programs and HACCP Plans.
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Prerequisite programs are programs for controlling the environment, preventing contamination of the product in the facility to control hazards. Prerequisite programs ensure a hygienic environment and good manufacturing processes for reducing the risk of contamination of the food product.
HACCP Plans are prepared for each process or product identifying possible hazards and controls in place to make sure the hazards are controlled to ensure acceptable levels in the food product or eliminated.
7 Steps to Implementing a HACCP System
- Conduct a Hazard Analysis
Hazards can be classified as physical (i.e. metal contamination), chemical (i.e. cleaning product contaminating the product, toxins and chemicals that could contaminate the product) or biological (bacteria or virus contaminating the product).This requires evaluating your processes and identify where hazards can be introduced. This stage is done in two steps, first the identification of hazards, then evaluating the hazard. Hazard evaluation is simply determining the degree of risk to the user from the identified hazard. Once the hazard is identified and evaluated the team must identify critical control points.
- Identify the Critical Control Point
These are the steps in the process that controls can be applied to prevent or eliminate the hazards that have been identified. For each of these CCPs preventive measure for the associated hazards are identified. These include use of specific pressure, temperature range, pH, time etc.
- Establish Critical Limits
These requires establishing a maximum or minimum values for temperature, time, pH, salt level, chlorine level or other processing characteristic that will control the hazard.If these limits are ever exceeded corrective action must be taken, and all affected product controlled. Questions such as these should be asked: What criteria must be met to control the hazard at that point? Is it a minimum temperature? Are there regulatory limits that you must meet for this control point?
- Establishing the Monitoring Procedures
Monitoring at the critical control points is important to ensure the effectiveness of the HACCP program. The monitoring program involves physical measurement or observations done in a timely manner to provide the information in a time frame that allows you to take action and control product if an out of control situation occurs.
- Establish Corrective Actions
This requires establishing actions that need to be taken if a critical limit is not met. The corrective action must ensure that no unsafe product is released. There must also be an evaluation of the process to determine the cause of the problem and an elimination of the cause to avoid future occurrence. The corrective action should be identified before an out of control situation occurs and, be prepared to take action quickly if and when it does occur.
- Establish Record Keeping Procedures
This involves determining the records that are needed to show that the critical limits have been met, and the system is in control. Regulatory requirements should be addressed which include records from the development and operation of the system.
- Establish Verification Procedures
The HACCP plan must be validated. Once the plan is in place, it is important that prevention of the hazards identified are effective. The end product should be tested and controls are verified to ensure that they are working as planned. Verification of the system must be an ongoing practice. Questions such as these should be asked: Are measuring and monitoring equipment in control? What are corrective actions showing? Are records being maintained as required?
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TACCP and VACCP Programs
TACCP and VACCP are relatively new programs compared with Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) program. While HACCP addresses hazards, TACCP & VACCP addresses threats and vulnerabilities.
TACCP stands for Threat Assessment & Critical Control Point, a systematic and management process to defend a food supply chain from intentional contamination. This program focuses attention on tampering, intentional adulteration of food, and food defense. It requires a wider range of employee involvement when compared with HACCP. It covers larger issues such as manufacturing plant and transportation security, security of the IT system, and employee background checks. As with HACCP, it also consists of various quality control checks.
VACCP represents Vulnerability Assessment & Critical Control Point, a systematic and management process to defend a food supply chain from any form of dishonest conduct that impacts negatively on quality and integrity of food and related products. This also focuses on food fraud but with a wider scope including, systematic prevention of any potential adulteration of food, whether intentional or not, through identification of vulnerable areas in a supply chain. This program bothers more with economically motivated adulteration (EMA). E.g. product substitutions, unapproved product enhancements, counterfeiting, stolen goods and others. Both TACCP & VACCP programs requires control plan that covers mitigation strategies and correction procedures; requiring effective audits of the entire supply chain, assessments of various suppliers and extensive quality control checks of raw materials, as in HACCP.
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Why they matter
Food fraud has become a major business (but a bad one). Counterfeit consumer products are increasingly becoming a growing concern over the last few decades. In a situation where the perpetrators have no wish to make their customers sick and thus call attention to their activities, it is unlikely they would intentionally put the public health at risk. However, such risks can occur as a result of the inexperience of the food handlers, poor packaging causing food spoilage, unlabeled or mis-labeled ingredients, and others. Food tampering/terrorism is usually malicious, motivated by desire to cause deliberate harm. These events have been raised as one that requires critical attention, hence the need for TACCP, focusing on a defensive strategy and analysis of the socio-economic factors that might influence the crime.
Differences between TACCP & VACCP
While both sounds similar, and are in fact similar, in that they are both designed to assure the safety of the food we manufacture; to prevent the intentional adulteration of food..
However, TACCP concerns itself with the prevention of deliberate and intentional food fraud in the form of substitution of ingredients, false or misleading statements for economic gain which could adversely impact the health of the consumers.
VACCP on the other hand, is concerned with how vulnerable the various points in the supply chain are to the threat of economically-motivated adulteration.
About the Author
Olanrewaju, Adebayo Bamidele is a Lead Auditor of ISO 9001, FSSC 22000 / ISO 22000, 14001 & 45001 Management Systems, Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CSSMBB), process engineer, and quality management professional with strong working experience and proven skills in manufacturing excellence, ISO management systems implementation, lean / digital manufacturing, and project management.
Adebayo is a Corporate Member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Associate Member, the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Corporate Member, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Corporate Member, Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers (NSChE), Associate Member, Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM), and Associate Member, Institute of Strategic Management of Nigeria (ISMN).
He is an author of over 15 books and has published over 45 online courses on various e-learning platforms including Udemy, Alison, Learnformula & Study Plex.
You can reach him, here.
