HACCP News
A buyer, a retailer or a co-manufacturing partner wants your food safety program to meet the GFSI benchmark. A HACCP plan is the core of that program, but it is not the whole of what the benchmark asks for – the rest sits in the management system built around the plan.
The ten pillars below are HACCP Builder’s own grouping of what sits around a HACCP plan. They are not a list GFSI itself publishes. For how GFSI and HACCP relate to each other in the first place, see GFSI or HACCP: What’s the Difference, and Do You Need Both.
How HACCP Builder LogiSafe Delivers the Ten Pillars
HACCP Builder LogiSafe is built around these ten pillars, 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. The pillars are not ten separate tools bolted together, each keeping its own records in its own corner of the system. They are ten places where the same underlying records – your check lists, your audits, your corrective actions – show up in the specific form each pillar needs. In practice that means:
- Everything compiles into a single HACCP Plan document, rather than a folder of separate files assembled the night before an audit.
- A finding from a check list or a self-audit opens a CAPA case in one click, instead of sitting on a page waiting for someone to remember it.
- Management review reads the same findings the CAPA page does, so the meeting starts from evidence instead of memory.
Nothing gets re-keyed between the place a problem is found and the place it gets fixed. See the full pillar table, and where each pillar lives in the system, on the GFSI page.
The Ten Pillars
01 Risk Analysis and Methodology
A risk analysis needs a described method behind it, not just a list of hazards with a conclusion attached. Programs run into trouble here when they can state that a hazard is significant but cannot show how severity and likelihood were scored, or when the scoring method was never written down at all, leaving an auditor nothing to retrace.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe sets a Risk Methodology per facility – score by severity and likelihood, or add detectability, with your own band thresholds. A Risk Register lists every hazard with its score, control and rationale, and hazard analysis rows arrive scored with a drafted rationale that you review and adjust, with moderate and significant scores carrying a written rationale.
See pillar 01 on the GFSI page
02 Management Review
Leadership is expected to periodically review the food safety program itself – trends, resources, whether the system is still working – not just confirm that CCPs were monitored day to day. This is a requirement that owners and plant managers skip most often, treating it as a once-a-year QA formality rather than evidence that leadership is actually looking at the program.
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.
See pillar 02 on the GFSI page
03 Self-Audits
A self-audit is the facility checking itself against its own program before a scheme auditor or a customer’s audit team does, run on a schedule, with an independent auditor and findings that lead somewhere. Programs fail this when the audit becomes a formality – same checklist, same auditor, same clean result, year after year – which is a sign the program has stopped looking, not that nothing is wrong. See what a self-audit program has to cover.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe includes a Self Audit plan covering schedule, auditor independence and how findings are documented, plus a HACCP-based self-audit check list. Findings are flagged automatically and surface on the CAPA page, where a case opens in one click.
See pillar 03 on the GFSI page
04 Food Fraud
Food fraud is vulnerability to intentional economic deception – substitution, dilution, mislabeling – and it is a separate assessment from food defense, which covers intentional contamination meant to cause harm. Programs fail this pillar when the two get conflated, or when no documented vulnerability assessment exists at all. See how food fraud differs from food defense.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe includes a dedicated Food Fraud module at corporate and facility level, with a starter question set across recognized fraud categories. It prints in your compiled plan as the Food Fraud Vulnerability Checklist.
See pillar 04 on the GFSI page
05 Food Safety Culture
Food safety culture has to be evidenced, not just declared in a policy statement. A program fails this when “culture” is a line in a handbook with nothing behind it – no record an auditor can look at that shows the culture is actually being measured.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe builds a culture measure from your own records – training compliance, culture check list completion and CAPA closure rate – rolled up at corporate level, so culture becomes something you can show rather than only something your policy says.
See pillar 05 on the GFSI page
06 Document and Record Control
Documents need current version control and review dates that are actually kept, so the copy in use is always the current one. Programs fail this when outdated versions keep circulating, or review dates lapse unnoticed until an auditor finds the wrong document on the floor. See how document control and the audit trail work.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe sets effective dates and review dates on Key Documents, flags a Documents Review Due on the Hub, keeps full plan revision history, and routes change reviews through facility and corporate approval.
See pillar 06 on the GFSI page
07 Management System Foundation
Every program needs a documented policy, stated objectives and clearly assigned responsibility and authority – the structural layer the rest of the system sits on. This fails when there is no written policy at all, or when responsibility is assumed rather than assigned to a named person.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe maintains a corporate Food Safety Policy covering purpose, commitments, communication, review and approval, plus food safety objectives, documented responsibilities and authority, and a facility org chart showing the top manager, sub managers and assigned employees. It prints as a section of your plan.
See pillar 07 on the GFSI page
08 Requirements Register
A facility needs a running record of which regulatory and customer requirements apply to it, and when each one is checked. This fails when no such list exists and compliance is simply assumed, so a changed requirement goes unnoticed until it surfaces at an audit.
HACCP Builder LogiSafe keeps a corporate register of the regulatory and customer requirements that apply to you, with review dates and overdue flags, started for you with real example entries. Assigned to a facility, it prints as its own section of that facility’s plan.
See pillar 08 on the GFSI page
09 Supplier Management
Supplier approval is not a one-time event – it has to stay current, with audits, certificates and corrective actions tracked over time. This fails when a supplier was approved years ago and nobody is watching for an expired certificate or an overdue follow-up audit. See what a retail supplier qualification review checks and how Letters of Guarantee get tracked.
In HACCP Builder LogiSafe, each vendor carries a risk level, last audit date and next audit due, with a dated audit trail. Certificates and Letters of Guarantee are tracked with expiry dates, and a vendor’s corrective actions open a CAPA case in one click.
See pillar 09 on the GFSI page
10 Continuous Improvement
The loop from finding, to correction, to review has to actually close. This fails when findings sit open with no corrective action, or get written down in two different places that never reconcile, so nobody can confirm the fix held.
In HACCP Builder LogiSafe, audit and check list findings are flagged automatically and land on the CAPA page, where a case opens in one click. Management Review reads the same findings. From finding, to case, to review, it is one system, and nothing is re-keyed.
See pillar 10 on the GFSI page
An Honest Note on Scope
Scope note: the ten pillars above are HACCP Builder’s own grouping and yours to adapt to your own operation. Risk ratings are yours to confirm, not ours to assign. Confirm what your specific scheme or customer expects rather than assuming this grouping maps exactly onto their checklist. This post is general information, not a compliance opinion for your facility.
Contact HACCP Builder to see how the ten pillars fit 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!
