HACCP as a system, provides a means of identifying and assessing potential hazards in food production and establishing preventive control procedures for those hazards. The emphasis on prevention of hazards reduces reliance on traditional inspection and end-product testing.

The HACCP concept can be applied to new or existing products and processes, and throughout the food chain from primary production to consumption. It is compatible with existing standards for quality management systems; for example, the International Standards Organisation have worked HACCP into the ISO 9000 series, to produce an integrated quality and safety standards, ISO 22000.

In recent years, a number of high profile cases of deliberate food contamination and food fraud have occurred, again for which HACCP was not designed.  New approaches to deal with these problems have arisen, using elements of HACCP; Threat Assessment and Critical Control Point (TACCP) and Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Point (VACCP).

PAS 96 (2014), the public standard for protection of food from deliberate attack, outlines economically motivated adulteration, malicious contamination, extortion, espionage, and counterfeiting and cyber crime as examples of the types of threats that can occur. VACCP and TACCP are used together to combat issues of food fraud and contamination.

At Leatherhead, we are able to help you with advice and guidance with your HACCP, TACCP and VACCP assessments, either by documentation review, or onsite assessments.