HACCP News
People use GFSI and HACCP in the same breath, and they are not two versions of the same thing. HACCP is a method for controlling hazards in your process. GFSI is a benchmark that reviews whole food safety schemes. One sits inside the other, and which one you are actually being asked for depends on who is asking.
What HACCP Is
HACCP, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, is a preventive system built on seven principles: conduct a hazard analysis, determine the critical control points, establish critical limits, establish monitoring procedures, establish corrective actions, establish verification procedures, and keep records that prove it all. It is a method for controlling the hazards in your process, and it produces a plan: the hazards identified, the controls that manage them, the limits that define “in control,” and the records that show it stayed that way.
What GFSI Is
The Global Food Safety Initiative is a benchmark. It reviews existing food safety schemes against a common set of requirements, the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements, and recognizes the schemes that meet them. GFSI does not write your plan, and it does not audit your facility. A GFSI-recognized scheme is the thing a facility is assessed against, and the assessment itself is carried out by a third-party body working to that scheme, not by GFSI.
How They Fit Together
GFSI-recognized schemes build on HACCP. Your hazard analysis and critical control points are the core of what a scheme auditor reads. Around that core, schemes typically go on to look at how the whole operation is managed: management commitment and review, internal audits, supplier approval, traceability and recall, training, food defense and food fraud, document and record control, and continuous improvement. HACCP is the part of the program that controls hazards in the process. The rest is the system that keeps it honest.
Do You Need Both?
It depends on who is asking and which rules apply to you.
- Some facilities must have a HACCP plan by regulation. USDA FSIS requires one for meat and poultry (9 CFR 417), and FDA requires HACCP for seafood (21 CFR 123) and juice (21 CFR 120).
- Most other FDA-regulated food facilities fall under the preventive controls rule (21 CFR 117). It is HACCP-based but not identical: a written hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls, overseen by a qualified individual.
- Meeting a GFSI-recognized scheme is voluntary in law. It becomes a requirement when a customer makes it one. A buyer, a retailer or a co-manufacturing partner may ask you to meet one. Some name a scheme, and many leave the choice to you.
Scope note: which regulations apply depends on your product, your facility and your jurisdiction. Confirm yours with your regulator or a qualified individual. This post is general information, not legal advice.
Where the Confusion Costs Facilities
- Treating a HACCP plan as if it answers a buyer’s request to meet a GFSI-recognized scheme. The plan is one part of what schemes look at, not the whole of it.
- Assuming GFSI will audit you or review your program. It reviews schemes, not facilities.
- Building the management system pieces, the internal audits, the management review, the supplier files, only when an audit is announced, instead of running them all year.
- Keeping the HACCP plan and the rest of the documentation as separate piles that drift apart, so the auditor finds two versions of the truth.
How HACCP Builder Helps
HACCP Builder is a HACCP-based, complete food safety management system. It is built around ten pillars that cover what sits around a HACCP plan, and it compiles them, with the rest of your program, into one complete plan document you can hand to an inspector, an auditor or a customer’s audit team. You can see the ten pillars, and where each one lives, on the GFSI page.
What This Is, and What It Is Not
This is an explanation of how HACCP and the GFSI benchmark relate, not a compliance opinion for your facility. Your risk ratings are yours to confirm, and the pillars are yours to adapt to your operation.
Contact HACCP Builder to see how the two fit together in your own facility.
We can be reached at (866) 577-4030 ext. 800 or via email at [email protected]. Leave us a message or book a free demo today!
