Food safety management and misinterpretation of HACCP

As the term "HACCP" (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) became known throughout the world in the late 1980's, very different views concerning the interpretation and the practical implementation of the concept developed concurrently. One could get the impression that "HACCP" is very often used as a synonym for all hygiene and food safety measures, respectively. As a consequent implementation of all seven principles during production, processing and preparation of foods is not always possible, it is quite frequent that measures and parameters are defined as control and monitoring measures with their respective critical limits which are no longer in agreement with the original meaning of HACCP notions of Coder Alimentarius. Unfortunately, quite often in practice the consequent application of the seven principles is watered down, leading to a decline in the effectiveness of food safety concepts. It is not uncommon that the logical implementation of basic hygiene measures is declared as an "HACCP concept" and that a product-and production-specific hazard analysis is not performed previously. Examples are given. The introduction of the term "HACCP" into the European legislation has created additional problems, because the principles which are mentioned there differ considerably in number and, particularly, in content from the seven principles of Coder Alimentarius. A way out of the presently somewhat confusing situation is suggested by using the '"Zurich House of Food-Safety" as a model. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.