HACCP News
An internal audit, sometimes called a self-audit, is the facility checking itself against its own program before a scheme auditor or a customer’s audit team does. Every GFSI-recognized scheme expects one, run on a schedule, with findings that lead somewhere. Skip that step and the first real test of your program is the one you cannot afford to fail.
What an Internal Audit Program Has to Cover
- Scope. Not just the HACCP plan and CCPs – prerequisite programs, sanitation, allergen controls, document control, and whatever else the written program commits to.
- Frequency. A schedule that covers every area of the program at least once a year, not a single pass staged right before the external audit.
- Auditor independence. Whoever audits an area cannot be the person who runs it day to day. A supervisor auditing their own line is not independent, even when everything they write down is accurate.
- Findings that go somewhere. A finding with no root cause, no corrective action, and no close-out date is a note, not an audit result.
Where Internal Audit Programs Usually Fail
The audit itself is rarely the hard part. The program around it is where these fall apart:
- It becomes a formality – same checklist, same auditor, same clean result, year after year. A program that never finds anything after a year of audits is not a program with nothing wrong. It is a program that is not looking.
- The “independent” auditor is auditing their own area because the facility is small, and nobody wrote down how that gets handled.
- Findings sit on a page with no corrective action attached, so the same gap shows up again at next year’s audit looking like a new one.
- The schedule exists on paper but is not followed, and nobody notices half the year’s audits are overdue until renewal is six months out.
How HACCP Builder Helps
HACCP Builder LogiSafe includes a Self Audit plan covering schedule, auditor independence, and how findings are documented, along with a HACCP-based self-audit check list. When the check list flags a problem, that finding surfaces automatically on the CAPA page, where a case opens in one click – so a finding does not depend on someone remembering to act on it later. See where self-audits sit among HACCP Builder LogiSafe’s ten pillars on the GFSI page.
An Honest Note on Scope
Scope note: how often an internal audit has to run, and what counts as sufficient auditor independence, differs by scheme and by the size of your facility – a five-person site cannot always find a totally unrelated auditor the way a multi-plant operator can. Confirm what your specific scheme or customer expects rather than assuming a generic schedule covers you. This post is general information, not a compliance opinion for your facility.
Contact HACCP Builder to see how a self-audit program fits 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!
