Flowcrete Americas New Whitepaper Explores HACCP and What it Means for the Food Industry

flowcreteImplementing an effective Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food safety management system is a central priority for today’s food and beverage producers, as it is critical to complying with the standards of regulatory authorities, governments and consumers.  

Flowcrete Americas has produced a whitepaper entitled What is a HACCP Food Safety Management System and How Does it Relate to Flooring? to help food and beverage businesses learn about this preventive risk assessment tool and ensure that all facilities comply with its guidelines.

Flowcrete Americas Vice President, Dave McNeece, said: “We’ve worked with some of the world’s largest food producers at their most challenging plants and we’ve always ensured that the knowledge, experience and skills we’ve built up have been put to use creating floors that effectively meet the industry’s multifaceted demands.

HACCP International Certified Floors

HACCP International Certified Floors

“This whitepaper has been produced as part of our commitment to advise the food industry on best practice flooring, as it is essential to follow HACCP’s rules in order to ensure that the finish underfoot will provide the necessary properties for a food facility.”

As the whitepaper explains, being HACCP compliant is vital to fulfilling the increasingly strict requirements of industry regulators. This is exemplified by the fact that food safety management systems based on HACCP principles are now a legal requirement under the FDA and USDA for all juice, seafood, meat and poultry processing plants in the US. When combined with the fact that many nations will require food to have been produced according to the same or similar principles, this means that failing to meet the HACCP benchmark can stop businesses from trading both domestically and internationally.

HACCP Whitepaper

HACCP Whitepaper

The HACCP process involves analyzing food safety hazards and putting in place appropriate controls to eliminate or reduce contamination. Getting the floor area right is central to this, as failing to do so could put the facility at risk from unwanted and difficult to eradicate bacteria buildup which could easily infiltrate and spoil produce onsite.

In the whitepaper readers will be able to find out what flooring characteristics and certifications to look out for to ensure that floors within production, processing and storage areas live up to the HACCP standard.

The whitepaper also examines how HACCP came to be created, the role it plays in the USA’s regulations as well as the product certification scheme HACCP International, which evaluates materials, equipment and services used within the food industry.

Getting ahead with HACCP is not an option, as the future of the food industry is towards ever more regulated use of due diligence programs. For example the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act and Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulation Part 117 require all food manufacturers to implement effective methods of prevention instead of merely responding to contamination outbreaks after they have happened. www.flowcreteamericas.com