HACCP plan for fresh packed vegetables

Dear all
I'm preparing a HCCAP study for a fresh vegetables packing company , the flow of the process is quite simple ( receiving-inspection-dry store-preparing and trimming-packing then cold store)
2 CCPs were been established till now (receiving and cold store) do any other step may consider as CCP,

thanks
Mmostafa

Dear Mostafa Mohammad,

It can depend on what standard the haccp plan is for (if any) and also yr precise situation and product/processing steps (eg whether any chlorinated washing stages before/after the trimming you mention).

I have attached 2 examples which may be of interest -

HACCPPlan_Wholesale_Fruits_and_Vegetables.pdf   248.73KB   1089 downloads

NZ generic haccp plan tomatos.pdf   451.64KB   771 downloads

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Mostafa Mohammad,

It can depend on what standard the haccp plan is for (if any) and also yr precise situation and product/processing steps (eg whether any chlorinated washing stages before/after the trimming you mention).

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Charles
as i told you , the sequence of the process is simple and no washing is been carried out after trimming.

Hi Mostafa,

Based on your simple process flow, and the fact that no washing of the vegetables appears to take place at any stage, then the prep and trimming stage is surely going to be a CCP as well as the packing stage - CCP's for potential physical contamination of the product with the parts of the vegetables which are trimmed off and CCP's for potential bacterial contamination of the prepared/trimmed product resulting from contact with the parts trimmed off and personnels hands/utensils which are coming into contact with unprepared vegetables during the preparation process.

It would be great if you could provide more detail on:

The locale/region/area your processing facility is located? (I'm assuming its in Egypt somewhere???)
Why you have a HACCP plan (customer requirement? Legal requirement? Internal Company rules?)
What the product is intended to be used for? (ingredient? meal? further manufactured products by another company/your own company?)
What type of customers purchase your product (Cafe's? Restaurants? Hotels? Cruise Boats? Hospitals? Schools? etc)
Types of products processed (Root vegetables?)
Source of products processed (Imported? Country? Locale? Region?)
Why the product is trimmed
What type of preparation/trimming you are doing (peeling? removing unwanted parts such as stalks/leaves? cutting into slices/diced/batons?)
What type of packaging is being used, such as Vacuum Packing, plasic bags (no vacuum), etc.

If we had this information the forum members could probably give you much more detailed advice, guidance and help.

Regards

Gloria

Dear Mostafa Mohammad,

At one time, haccp plans for this product area had CCPs all over the place, now there are usually not more than 2-3. The notable difficulty is that there is no major bactericidal step in the usual process. The USA has had several major incidents from RTE prepared vegetables in last 5-10 yrs, particularly due bacterial contamination at source.

One classic risk is contaminated, harvested material which then further contaminates already cleaned material, either directly or indirectly.

Additionally, cutting often promotes bacterial effects.

The above plus the previous post are typical reasons why there usually is a washing stage(s) in processing/cutting vegetables.

Nonetheless, any CCPs in yr process should be based on yr risk analysis.

Rgds / Charles.C

Hi Mostafa,
From what I understand, you have simple process of receiving, regrading/trimming and storage. I think the hazards should be controlled by your prerequisite programs and you would want to revisit your CCPs using the Decision tree because Receiving and Storage are usually part of Prerequisite programs. They may actually be only Control points and not CCPs. This will make your program even simple to prepare and implement.

Dear all
I'm preparing a HCCAP study for a fresh vegetables packing company , the flow of the process is quite simple ( receiving-inspection-dry store-preparing and trimming-packing then cold store)
2 CCPs were been established till now (receiving and cold store) do any other step may consider as CCP,

thanks
Mmostafa

Hi Mostafa,

To me i dont see any need of CCPs for your HACCP. There should be only control points covered by PRPs(prerequisite programmes),hence i would do away with these CCPs as this is a very small production production process.

Regards,
Kamwenji Njuma

MD anyone?

Hi im annabelle lim from philippines.  i need to make gmp and haccp plan also for fresh vegetable packing company.  process is quite similar -  receiving, sorting/trimming, packing and deliver.  we are generally a trading company.  we purchase from market (several kinds of vegetables) and repacked them accdg to ordered quantities then deliver to restaurants.  would like to ask what control measure for the chemical hazard ie. pesticides and biological hazard i.e. salmonella that might be present in vegetables purchased from market. would this be a ccp? thanks 

Hi im annabelle lim from philippines.  i need to make gmp and haccp plan also for fresh vegetable packing company.  process is quite similar -  receiving, sorting/trimming, packing and deliver.  we are generally a trading company.  we purchase from market (several kinds of vegetables) and repacked them accdg to ordered quantities then deliver to restaurants.  would like to ask what control measure for the chemical hazard ie. pesticides and biological hazard i.e. salmonella that might be present in vegetables purchased from market. would this be a ccp? thanks 

 

Hi annabelle,

 

It depends on product (RTE??), risk assesssment, local legislation, FS Standard, supply chain, flowchart etc

 

The basic control measure is typically to implement an appropriate  approved supplier whose produce is validated to comply with relevant specifications.

 

For example -

 

HACCP Generic Model for Ready-To-Eat Fresh-Cut Vegetables - Food - Canadian Food Inspection Agency.pdf   427.04KB   291 downloads

Hi annabelle,

 

It depends on product (RTE??), risk assesssment, local legislation, FS Standard, supply chain, flowchart etc

 

The basic control measure is typically to implement an appropriate  approved supplier whose produce is validated to comply with relevant specifications.

 

For example -

 

HACCP Generic Model for Ready-To-Eat Fresh-Cut Vegetables - Food - Canadian Food Inspection Agency.pdf

 

Hi Charles, vegetables are not RTE. we only sort and repacked (packed into smaller quantities) the vegetables we purchase from market.  its involves several kinds of vegetables and several suppliers and volume of most items arent really big.  we just need to complete all items needed by the customer no matter how small.  we are also just a small trading company.  i was wondering if there are other control measures since it would be hard if not impossible to ask for some kind of certifications from market vendors.  would it be ok to not have a control measure for this since normally customers wash the produce before they cook them?  if not, is it enough to conduct random testing of product? how frequent and how many would be considered enough? this might however be very expensive. some suggest to add washing to our process but i think this would make our process more complicated aside from additional costs involved and not sure if we can accomodate additional steps since some customers can give orders only the night before delivery.  we have to purchase and pack midnight and deliver early morning.  If washing needs to be done, is 10% salt solution acceptable?  I read an article that suggest using salt instead of chlorine.  also does this have to be done on all kinds of vegetables? we would prefer something with the least effect on costs and process.  thanks

Hi Charles, vegetables are not RTE. we only sort and repacked (packed into smaller quantities) the vegetables we purchase from market.  its involves several kinds of vegetables and several suppliers and volume of most items arent really big.  we just need to complete all items needed by the customer no matter how small.  we are also just a small trading company.  i was wondering if there are other control measures since it would be hard if not impossible to ask for some kind of certifications from market vendors.  would it be ok to not have a control measure for this since normally customers wash the produce before they cook them?  if not, is it enough to conduct random testing of product? how frequent and how many would be considered enough? this might however be very expensive. some suggest to add washing to our process but i think this would make our process more complicated aside from additional costs involved and not sure if we can accomodate additional steps since some customers can give orders only the night before delivery.  we have to purchase and pack midnight and deliver early morning.  If washing needs to be done, is 10% salt solution acceptable?  I read an article that suggest using salt instead of chlorine.  also does this have to be done on all kinds of vegetables? we would prefer something with the least effect on costs and process.  thanks

 

Hi annabelle,

 

As i understand yr objective is to develop a haccp plan.

 

May i ask for whom ? eg customer only, specific Certification Board, etc ? The answer may determine what you need to do.

Hi Charles we are supposed to make/implement gmp and haccp plan.  we are required by our customer to be audited by NSF who also audits them. 

Hi Charles we are supposed to make/implement gmp and haccp plan.  we are required by our customer to be audited by NSF who also audits them. 

 

Thks for reply.

 

I suggest you first obtain a copy of the relevant NSF Standard to be used which will likely answer a lot of the queries in Post 11.

Low Risk Prepared Vegetables - Flow Chart 05.04.17.XLS   43.5KB   210 downloadsThis is my flow diagram for RTC vegetables