HACCP News
Every GFSI-recognized scheme expects more than a working HACCP plan and clean monitoring records. It expects the people who actually run the business – not just the people who run the program day to day – to periodically step back and ask whether the whole food safety system is still working. That is management review, and it is the pillar that sits around a HACCP plan most often reduced to a once-a-year formality: a signed form, a short meeting, nothing that changes because of it. See how management review fits with the other programs around a HACCP plan on the GFSI page.
A Leadership Obligation, Not a QA Task
Management review exists because a food safety program needs more than monitoring – it needs someone with the authority to commit resources, change priorities, or decide the program is not working as designed. QA can gather the inputs and run the meeting. It cannot stand in for the decision leadership is supposed to make: is this system still adequate, and does it have what it needs. A program where management review happens without anyone from leadership in the room has not actually met the requirement, whatever the paperwork says.
What Has to Go Into a Review
The exact list varies by scheme, but the shape is consistent. A review that holds up typically looks at:
- CCP monitoring trends and deviations since the last review, not just whether today’s checks passed.
- Results of audits and self-audits completed since the last review, including findings that are still open.
- Corrective action status – what was opened, what closed, and whether the same root cause keeps coming back.
- Customer complaints and feedback that bear on food safety.
- Changes to the business, the process, regulations, or customer requirements since the last review.
- Follow-up on actions committed to at the previous review – a review that never checks its own homework is not really reviewing anything.
- Whether resources – people, equipment, training capacity – are still adequate for the program as it exists today.
How Often, and Who Has to Be There
Most schemes expect management review at least annually, and more often when the program is new, unstable, or carrying open major findings. The meeting itself matters less than who is in it: this is a review by top management, whether that is an owner, a plant manager, or a corporate food safety lead with real authority, not a meeting QA holds among themselves and files afterward.
What Auditors Look For
An auditor asking about management review is not satisfied by a signed cover sheet. They are looking for evidence that the inputs above were actually discussed, that decisions or actions came out of the meeting, and that those actions were followed up at the next one. A program that can show the same review producing different outcomes year over year, as the business and its findings change, reads very differently from one that produces an identical form on the same date every year.
Where This Pillar Usually Fails
The meeting is rarely missing entirely. What fails is what the meeting is built on:
- Leadership is not actually present, or is present but the record does not show their input or decisions.
- The review runs from memory instead of from current CCP, audit, and CAPA data, so it misses what actually happened since the last one.
- Actions get discussed but never tracked to closure, so the same gap resurfaces at the next review.
- The review becomes a copy of last year’s, with no sign anyone looked at whether the program had actually changed.
How HACCP Builder Helps
HACCP Builder LogiSafe provides a Management Review plan and check list, linked from the facility Hub. Results for your CCPs and open audit findings since the last completed review are pulled in automatically, so the meeting starts from evidence rather than memory. Audit and check list findings are flagged automatically and land on the CAPA page, where a case opens in one click, and Management Review reads those same findings – from finding, to case, to review, nothing is re-keyed. See what a self-audit program has to cover for the findings that typically feed into review, and pillar 02 on the GFSI page for where Management Review lives in LogiSafe.
An Honest Note on Scope
Scope note: the frequency, the exact required inputs, and who must attend differ by scheme and by customer. Some ask for more frequent review when major findings are open; others set their own minimum inputs beyond the shape described here. Confirm what your specific scheme or customer expects rather than assuming the list above is complete for your program. This post is general information, not a compliance opinion for your facility.
Contact HACCP Builder to see how a management review fits your own facility.
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