Sunday, March 27, 2011

Food Smarts - For Real: ‘Wassup with HACCP?’ Part 1

Are some of you wondering what is this HACCP (pronounced as “has-sip”) thing? For those of you who do know something about HACCP, I can now imagine your pained expressions. That is the usual reaction when I mention HACCP to someone who knows about HACCP. Have you just been asked to write a HACCP plan by your local Health Department? Has your Health Inspector asked you to provide HACCP training to your employees? Many questions – many answers coming. HACCP is an acronym that stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. HACCP is a Food Safety Management system that focuses on the concept that if significant biological, chemical or physical contaminations are identified at specific points within a product’s flow through an operation, they can be prevented eliminated or reduced to safe levels. Blah, Blah, Blah … what does that really mean?

I remember the first time I sat in Food Service Manager Certification class and hearing the same info, thinking, “I have no idea what this means.” To tell you the truth – I felt overwhelmed and in over my head. I think that can be explained by the language that is used to describe HACCP. To give you some history: HACCP was originally developed by NASA who consulted with Pillsbury who had developed the concept in the 1960’s in their own manufacturing plants. My first question to self, when I learned this was, “Why is NASA getting involved with Food Safety? What did they care?” Then I connected the dots and realized that it was very important to NASA to avoid foodborne illness for their astronauts for the lunar launch.

HACCP was initially enforced in the U.S. for fish and meat plants. Nowadays, it is nationally required if an establishment is seeking a variance. The common denominator for most of these activities that require a variance is that they are “methods of food preservation.” In a nutshell, the variance is required for the following activities and will not be granted unless written proof (a written HACCP Plan) is demonstrated that the establishment can handle the food safely through the entire flow of the food item. This makes sense, as when preserving food, if done improperly, there is much opportunity for bacterial growth to occur. Some of the activities that require a variance and thus, simultaneously, a written HACCP plan are:

  • Smoking Foods as a method of food preservation
  • Curing Foods as a method of food preservation
  • Using Food additives as a method of food preservation
  • Using Reduced Oxygen Packaging as a method of food preservation
  • Serving Molluscan Shellfish from a display tank as a method of food preservation
  • Custom process animals for personal use as a method of food preservation

Most of our customers and most of you are not doing these activities, so how does it affect you? In real life you do what your local health inspector or jurisdiction requires of you, for example in the State of Maryland, HACCP is required as per COMAR, “Health-General Article, §21-321, Annotated Code of Maryland, and the Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR) 10.15.03 Definitions of priority assessment levels are found in COMAR 10.15.03.33C. A HACCP plan is required for all high or moderate priority facilities. Facilities which serve only hand dipped ice cream or commercially packaged potentially hazardous foods do not require a HACCP plan.”

Translated, this means a HACCP plan needs to be provided before an establishment gets approval to open or if they do construction or a remodel of an existing building. Some establishments were grandfathered and did not have to provide a HACCP plan, but now they are being asked to provide one to their local Health Department. Catering companies and mobile trucks that serve food are also required to provide a HACCP plan. Additionally in Maryland, we have been getting requests by restaurants to help them with their HACCP plans even though it was approved in the past. This is because they are being reviewed in many cases every 5 years.

Some of our customers have told us that their local Health Inspector has asked them to provide HACCP training to their employees. I translate “HACCP Training” synonymously with “Food Safety Training.” If you provide “Food Safety Training” to your employees, you are in compliance with HACCP training. HACCP serves many purposes; protect your public’s health, serves as written proof to your health inspector that you know proper procedures and lastly it protects you if you are accused of a foodborne illness and have to go to court. Next month, we will go over how to write a HACCP plan.

Food Smarts - For Real...'Record Your Temperatures'

by Juliet Bodinetz-Rich

Last month we discussed investing in thermometers for your ‘Safe Staff’ and making sure they take actual temperature readings and to remind them to calibrate those thermometers.  I realize ‘For Real,’ that a chef is not going take the temperature of every hamburger, pork chop, or steak they cook.  I understand that they are using their skills and experience as a chef to recognize these foods are cooked by their color and texture. In real life, to protect your establishment as well as your customers, temperatures should be taken and logs should be documented and kept in these situations:

1)   Receiving – Take random temperatures to make sure product is entering your establishment safely.
2)   Refrigeration Storage – It’s not going to hurt you to take two or three random food item temperatures in your refrigeration units each day. You need to know immediately if your refrigeration units have stopped working. It doesn’t matter how much I love an owner, I have no pity at all for an establishment if they are finding out their refrigeration unit is broken because their health inspector is telling them. How long has it been broken? Since their last visit last year?  
3)   Cooking – Soups, Stews & Casseroles (165°F) because you have added raw to cooked ingredients, poultry because of high risk of Salmonella and roasts.
4)   Cooling – Write down when you start cooling the food and what time you put it in the fridge. You only have 2 hours to get that cooling food to 70°F or below so you can then put it in the fridge. Write down the time and temperatures you start cooling, put it in the fridge and time completed of cooling. It’s proof that the cooling soup has not been sitting on the kitchen counter all day. Especially if you get a “surprise visit” from your local Health Inspector.
5)   Reheating – You only have two hours to get it to 165°F. 
6)   Maintaining – Instead of waiting four hours and discarding the food item if it’s in the TDZ, do a temperature check at two hours so you can correct the situation.  Why throw your money (your food) in the trash?

Record keeping and documentation of time and temperature logs demonstrates that you are actually taking temperatures and controlling Time and Temperature to avoid foodborne illnesses. As exemplified above, temperatures should be taken and recorded whenever food is being held to be served and especially when the food is passing through the most dangerous part of the Temperature Danger Zone: 70°F-125°F, i.e. cooling and reheating.  According to the “Magic Rule,” food cannot be in the danger zone more than four hours or else it has to be discarded. But when reheating or cooling food is only allowed two hours going up or down through the most dangerous part of TDZ ~70°F-125°F. Time & Temperature logs help guide your employees to make sure they are following proper procedures and it also serves as demonstration to your health inspectors that proper procedures are being followed. Worst case scenario: you are taken to court for a foodborne illness accusation; your Time & Temperature Logs can help protect you as proof that you were in compliance with local health regulations. No one cares what you say in court and that is why written documentation is so important when you take temperatures.  Don’t know how to get started on developing a Time & Temperature Log? We hope these examples can help you to make them on excel for example?

General Food Holding (Hot/Cold) & for Your Refrigeration Units

Date
Time
Food Product
Internal Temperature
Corrective Action Taken
Employee Initials
Manager Initials






















Cooling Time & Temperature Log

Date
Food
Time
Internal Temp
+2hours
Time
+ 2 hours internal Temp
Corrective Action Taken
Employee initials
+4 hours time
+4 hours internal Temp
Corrective
 Action Taken
Employee initials




































Reheating Time & Temperature Log
Date
Food
Time
+2 hours time
+2 hours internal Temp
Corrective Action Taken
Employee Initials
Manager Initials