Application of HACCP Certification in Canned Food Production

Canned food is a key product in China's food export industry, with an annual export volume of about 1 million tons, mainly exported to the United States, Europe, and all over the world. With the improvement of living standards, people have put forward more and more stringent requirements on food safety, hygiene, health, and environmental protection. How to change concepts, effectively strengthen the supervision of export canned food production enterprises, fundamentally improve the safety of canned food, and reduce the generation of artificial technical trade barriers are issues that CIQ must consider. The author believes that establishing a HACCP certified safety control system in export canned food enterprises is an important means of effective supervision and scientific management.
1. The feasibility of establishing HACCP certification in canned food production enterprises: China Factory Inspection Network
1. HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is the abbreviation of the first letters of the English words Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. It is a management system used by people to control food safety hazards and protect food from biological, chemical and physical hazards. As early as 1974 , the US FDA first introduced the HACCP certification principle into the GMP of low-acid canned food in federal regulations to ensure that canned food is not harmed by Clostridium botulinum. In the past 30 years, many countries including the United States, the European Union, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and other countries have widely adopted HACCP in their food processing industries. Some countries even use HACCP as a mandatory standard for assessing and approving food processing plants. The HACCP certification system has become an internationally recognized and accepted system for ensuring food safety. In China's export canned food production enterprises, GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) and SSOP (Sanitation Operating Procedure) have been generally established, a sanitation quality assurance system has been established, and even ISO9000 international certification has been passed, so they have a good production level and management level. As a CIQ , we must implement a change in work functions, change the previous concept of focusing on inspection and neglecting supervision, and make effective supervision the focus of our work. Introducing the HACCP certification management model into enterprises is the starting point of our current work.

2. The core of HACCP certification is to change the control concept based on final product inspection to preventive control of hazards in the food production process, so as to ensure food safety. The idea of ​​HACCP certification is to emphasize the basic responsibility of enterprises to produce safe food, and to attribute the responsibility of ensuring food safety to enterprises first. It corrects the practice of inspection and quarantine agencies taking charge of and replacing other practices that are not conducive to quality control by enterprises, and transforms the quality and safety control of food from a passive " after-the-fact remedy " to an active " pre-emptive prevention " . At the same time, HACCP certification also provides an effective way for factories to communicate with CIQ and for law enforcement personnel to focus their attention on the links in the processing process that are most prone to safety hazards during supervision. China Factory Inspection Network

3. When canned food enterprises formulate HACCP certification plans, they must first establish GMP and SSOP . GMP and SSOP are the basis of HACCP , while GMP and SSOP are the surface, and HACCP certification is the point. By taking the point to lead the surface, we can grasp the focus of work and achieve twice the result with half the effort in supervision. At present, our inspection and quarantine department's supervision of export canned food production enterprises is mainly based on the " Sanitary Requirements for Export Food Factories and Warehouses " and the " Registration Sanitary Specifications for Export Canned Food Processing Enterprises " . From beginning to end, from big to small, one by one, the result is a lot of big and small problems. There are inspections, supervision, and certain effects. However, when we check again not long after, there are still many old problems. This shows that our supervision methods are backward, the effect is not so effective, and our work can no longer adapt to the economic development of enterprises. Once an enterprise has established a HACCP certification plan, our inspection and quarantine department only needs to monitor whether its HACCP certification plan is effectively implemented, whether SSOP is effectively controlled, and whether the records are complete and effective, so as to grasp the key and achieve effective supervision. This can maximize the enterprise's autonomy and self-control capabilities, and the inspection of the final product can be boldly let go, and even consider opening a " green channel " . China Factory Inspection Network

4. The HACCP certification plan focuses on analyzing possibilities, controlling processing links, and preventing non-conformities. Compared with traditional inspections, HACCP certification is conducive to the transformation of CIQ's work functions, from inspection to verification, and improving CIQ's own work effectiveness. Overcome the shortcomings of traditional canned food safety control methods, such as the sampling inspection method for canned food, which does not fully reflect the quality of canned products. In fact, the defects of canned quality have already been formed. On the contrary, if defects are found in canned food during the inspection process, it is not possible to completely correctly judge the quality of the canned food. China Factory Inspection Network

5. At present, the promotion momentum of HACCP certification in the aquatic, quick-frozen and other food industries is good both internationally and domestically, creating favorable external conditions for the canned food industry to implement the HACCP system. At the same time, due to the increasing prominence of global food safety issues and the continued occurrence of food-borne diseases, more and more people in the world are seeking improvement measures, and the implementation of HACCP certification by companies has become a global trend. Domestic awareness of HACCP certification is also gradually heating up. Now many visionary managers of canned food companies have proposed to establish a HACCP certification plan. I believe that as a world-recognized food safety control system, the HACCP certification system will definitely be accepted and adopted by canned food companies. China Factory Inspection Network

     2. How to promote and implement the HACCP certification system. China Factory Inspection Network

1. Publicity and education: China Factory Inspection Network

First, we should promote HACCP certification to relevant government departments, factory directors and managers. Before an enterprise obtains sanitary registration, relevant government departments and factory directors often pay more attention to it. In order to ensure the smooth export of products, the enterprise internally controls all aspects of quality management very strictly. However, once the sanitary registration certification is obtained, they tend to relax and even become a formality. Some even think that they can cope with CIQ inspections, and consider how to win with quality and participate in international market competition. Therefore, promoting the importance of HACCP certification to factory directors and managers of canned food production enterprises is the key to prompting factories to establish HACCP and make it run effectively. China Factory Inspection Network

Second, we help enterprises train professionals who understand HACCP certification, so that technical personnel of enterprises can understand the practicality and effectiveness of HACCP certification in strengthening food safety control in theory, and let them master the principles of HACCP certification and related supporting documents, so that they can set hazard critical control points ( CCP ) according to different process flows and monitoring levels of product production.

CIQ should set up a HACCP technical advisory working group to guide enterprises to establish HACCP certification plans. According to the two aspects of possible safety hazards of food, one is the physical, chemical and biological contamination that may be caused by the food processing environment and the processing process; the second is the food unsafety caused by unreasonable or poor control of the processing technology. Analyze the potential hazard factors one by one? Which are the significant hazards? What is the basis for judgment? Can it be prevented or can it be controlled by SSOP ? Finally, determine the critical control point ( CCP ) and critical limit ( CL ). Of course, different companies, different products, and different countries of sale have different final CCPs . Taking canned mushrooms as an example, it is obvious that the sealing and sterilization (including residual chlorine control) processes can be determined as CCPs . For example, low-acid canned food exported to the United States must be accompanied by original records of sealing and sterilization (including residual chlorine) and can only be exported after passing the audit; and for canned food exported to Canada, since Canada has extremely strict requirements on external packaging and it is difficult to control according to standards during the production process, the packaging can also be listed as CCP at this time; for some companies, the safety and sanitation of raw materials is difficult to control with SSOP , so they should also be listed as CCPs at this time... When compiling HACCP system documents and related supporting documents, they should be highly operational and focused. Neither every processing step can be listed as a CCP , nor can a possible hazard be overlooked. Otherwise, the HACCP plan will inevitably become extremely large and complex, difficult to operate, and the advantages of HACCP certification will be difficult to reflect. After the document is compiled, it is necessary to timely carry out employee education and training, especially the training of production management personnel and key process (such as sealing, sterilization) operators. The successful application of HACCP certification requires the full responsibility commitment and involvement of management and employees, further enhancing the awareness of canned food safety and hygiene, strengthening production discipline, and conducting standardized operations.

3. Supervision verification: During the operation of HACCP certification, CIQ should conduct inspections from time to time to ensure the normal operation of the HACCP certification system. The inspection content includes: the implementation and revision of the HACCP certification plan; the monitoring of key control points; the monitoring records of key control points; the calibration records of instruments and meters and the controlled state; deviations and corrective measures taken; sampling inspections, etc. To verify that the key control points are in a controlled state. Through the self-inspection, patrol inspection and CIQ review of the enterprise's quality control department, the enterprise's HACCP certification system is always in an efficient and autonomous operation state, and the system is constantly modified and improved. China Factory Inspection Network

In short, in order to make the HHACCP certification system run effectively, CIQ should actively integrate into the factory HACCP certification team at the beginning of its establishment. Through communication and assistance to the factory to conduct product hazard analysis, determine critical control points ( CCP ) and critical limits ( CL ), and establish CCP monitoring system, correction measures and verification procedures, the HACCP certification plan can be made feasible.

3. Issues that need to be solved in promoting HACCP certification in canned food enterprises.
1. As far as canned food production is concerned, HACCP certification has at least two key control points, namely the sealing performance (sealing) and sterilization of the container. Of course, for different varieties and processing technologies, there may also be raw material control, maximum canning volume control, etc. Some technical work needs us to improve as soon as possible, such as the formulation of the maximum canning volume and sterilization process regulations for bottled cans, and the formulation of sealing performance standards for some containers (bottles, soft packaging cans). Only by completing these basic technical work can the HACCP certification plan be more effective and provide sufficient basis for CIQ inspection and supervision. China Factory Inspection Network

2. HACCP certification requires the producer to accept the greatest responsibility. CIQ personnel can determine whether the company's HACCP certification plan is actually implemented and effectively monitored by verifying it, instead of keeping the control at the primary management stage of batch inspection. This change in administrative functions may cause some misunderstandings in the company's concepts. Companies usually rely on the inspection and supervision of law enforcement agencies to ensure food safety and quality. Therefore, how to help companies achieve changes in management models and concepts, improve management levels, strengthen business training for managers, and especially the training of technical backbones is our main task. China Factory Inspection Network