What HACCP Is and Why Factories Use It

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. It is a systematic way to find the hazards that could make a food unsafe, decide which steps in the process must control them, and then control, monitor and prove that control every day.

The key idea is prevention. Older food safety systems relied heavily on testing the finished product. Testing still has a place, but a test only looks at a small sample, and by the time a result arrives the batch may already be in shops. HACCP moves the effort upstream: it controls the conditions that make food safe while the food is being made, so that a safe product is the normal result, not a lucky one.

What HACCP does for a factory

• Protects consumers. It targets the hazards that actually cause harm: pathogens surviving a heat step, metal from a broken sieve, an undeclared allergen on the wrong label.
• Meets legal duties. In many countries, food businesses must have procedures based on HACCP principles.
• Meets customer demands. Retailers and food service buyers usually require a certified food safety system, and every recognised scheme is built on HACCP.
• Gives evidence. Records show what was controlled, when and by whom. After a complaint or an inspection, that evidence matters.
• Focuses resources. By separating the few critical steps from the many routine ones, it tells the factory where the closest attention is needed.

The case used in this course

Throughout the course you will follow one invented factory: a medium-sized dairy that makes plain set yoghurt, stirred fruit yoghurt and a salted drinking yoghurt. It also packs a yoghurt pot with a separate granola topping that contains nuts. Raw milk arrives by tanker from approved farms. The milk is tested, stored cold, standardised, heat treated, fermented with a starter culture, mixed with fruit preparation where needed, filled into sealed pots, checked, coded, chilled and dispatched.

All figures, limits and events in the case are invented for teaching. A real factory takes its values from its own validation, its national rules and its customers' requirements.