HACCP means Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, and for a kitchen it means a plan with a handful of steps that get measured every day. The FDA's HACCP principles and application guidelines, cited below, describe HACCP as a systematic approach to the identification, evaluation and control of food safety hazards based on seven principles. The gov.uk guidance for food businesses, cited below, says a food safety management system must meet the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point principles, and describes critical control points as the points when you need to prevent, remove or reduce a hazard in your work process. The HACCP plan template on this site prints the plan from the kitchen's processes, free and without an account; the paid product keeps the records.
What the analysis means
Walking each process from receiving to serving for what could go wrong, biological, chemical, physical, allergen, with the person who does the work, and writing it down as a table of steps and hazards. The table is the plan's first page and the part the template on this site prints from the process list.
What a critical control point means
A step where the hazard is prevented, removed or reduced and nothing later will do it. The same guidance gives the cooking standard as 70°C for 2 minutes, or the equivalents it lists, 75°C for 30 seconds among them. The Food Standards Agency's cooking-your-food guidance, cited below, gives the danger zone as between 8 and 63°C, where bacterial growth occurs, and says leftovers must be cooled and put in the fridge within two hours and eaten within 48 hours.
What the daily work means
Measuring at each control point, recording it with the time and initials, acting when the limit is missed with the action the plan wrote in advance, and checking that the probe reads true. The hot food temperature check and the temperature log planner on this site are the records; the audit checklist is the check.
What it costs to keep
FoodDocs lists its Lite plan at $99 per site per month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, and its Standard plan at $199 per site per month, with a free 14-day trial, on its pricing page cited below. ProbeLedger Pro is $49 per month for the whole site.
Questions people ask about haccp means
Does HACCP mean I need a consultant?
No; competence and the FSA's guidance. The template is the shape; the kitchen's knowledge is the content.
Does HACCP mean paperwork?
It means records; where they live, folder or app, is the kitchen's choice.
Is the template free?
Yes, without an account.