The Role Of Gmp And Haccp Certifications In The Global Food Industry

By Author: URS Certification
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Consumers have become the heavy focus for food producers, especially in today’s more and more globalized food market. To ensure the safety and quality of food products, businesses across the food industry are turning to two essential certifications: GMP and HACCP. These certifications are not only a set of obligatory necessities, but the essence of creating a powerful brand relation the society as well as the enhancement of customer trust.

What is GMP?

GMP Certification is a logical strategy that enshrine quality assurance and points to the way by which products are manufactured and controlled in a consistent manner. It has include many activities, like:

Hygiene and sanitation: Sanitation and the general hygiene through proper cleaning of production areas.
Personnel hygiene: It also includes stringent measures that should be taken to enforce workers to observe high levels of hygiene.
Equipment and facility design: Having proper equipment and ensuring that the center and the equipment are well maintained.

Process ...
... control: Translating appropriate strategies into place to regulate the production processes.
Recordkeeping: Recording all the producing effectively and accurately in detail.

What is HACCP?

HACCP is a preventative approach used in the food business to reduce the potential of hazards and create CCPs. It is a structured process of assessing and managing risks that lead to cases of foodborne diseases.

The key principles of HACCP include:

Conducting a hazard analysis: Defining the possible risks that may happen in any phase of producing food and whom they affect.
Determining critical control points: Isolating the points on the process when the hazards can be managed.

Establishing critical limits: Setting clear targets for each CCP on the number of patients to be seen, the type of patients, amount of time that can be spent or billable charges to be achieved, among others.

Corrective actions: Correcting, or aversive action, immediately when there exists a deviation from the control chart predictions.

Verification: Checking on the functionality of the implemented HACCP system.

Recordkeeping: Other key components that must be effectively implemented include Keeping documented records of all the HACCP activities.
The GMP and HACCP are related in execution as a system, which is needed to implement GMP for it to act as a basis for HACCP.

As much as GMP and HACCP Certification are two different systems, they are related in that one can complement the other. GMP can be regarded as the first step towards the production of safe food because it offers the minimum requirements of hygiene and operation standards. HACCP is derived from this basis by concentrating on food safety hazards in its aim. However, as commented earlier, these two standards are closely related, where GMP is actually a precursor to the application of HACCP.

URS provides certification to all major ISO standards, as well as specialist industry standards and certification to address emerging risks