I've searched the forums and read many of the posts, but I can't quite find the information I'm looking for.
We can fruit and pie fillings. 9 months of the year, we can from frozen or canned fruit. The other 3 months, we can from fresh, from local growers. The frozen fruit comes with a certificate of analysis, but we inspect the fresh fruit ourselves. It's an acidified product, and our CCP is a time/temp recommended and validated by the can companies.
My predecessor and the rest of the HACCP team determined that the fresh fruit was a low risk, because we have controls to mitigate any potential physical or biological hazards, but that doesn't sit right with me. I thought we would need to classify it as a medium risk, because if we didn't have the CPs/CCP in place there would be potential for those hazards to make it to the finished product. (I can agree that the supplier could be low risk, based on the documentation we require, and the fact that the company has had relationships with most of the farmers for 20-50 years.)
I value all the opinions and advice here, but I also need something to back it up. What I've been able to find is primarily an assortment of risk matrix variations and decision trees, but what I need is something more concrete. Any suggestions? Or am I completely wrong, and having these later steps to mitigate these risks means that the ingredient doesn't carry any inherent risks?
Thanks!
Mandy