Historial: GUIDES TO GOOD PRACTICE FOR HYGIENE AND FOR THE APPLICATION OF THE HACCP PRINCIPLES

7. GUIDES TO GOOD PRACTICE FOR HYGIENE AND FOR THE APPLICATION OF THE HACCP PRINCIPLES

Articles 7-9 of the Regulation provide for the development of guides to good practice for hygiene and for the application of the HACCP principles.

Although they are a voluntary instrument, such guides enable food business sectors (at the level of primary production and after primary production) to describe in more detail how operators can comply with the legal requirements which are expressed in more general terms in the Regulation.

In the new food hygiene rules, a number of requirements are laid down that:

• Leave room for judgement to the food business operator: for that purpose, the terms “where necessary”, “where appropriate”, “adequate” and “sufficient” are introduced into the Regulation (e.g. “an adequate number of washbasins is to be available”, or, “cleaning and disinfection of equipment are to take place at a frequency sufficient to avoid any risk of contamination”), or

• Are formulated as an objective to be reached, but where the food business operator must develop the means to reach the objective (e.g. with regard to the heat treatment in hermetically sealed containers, “any treatment is to prevent the product from becoming contaminated during the process.”)

Guides to good practice are a useful tool to assist food business operators in:

• Making a judgement on the necessity, appropriateness, adequacy or sufficiency of a particular requirement, e.g. to indicate what an adequate number of washbasins is, and

• Defining the means to reach the objectives that are defined in the Regulation e.g. to indicate what the frequency of cleaning and disinfection of equipment should be.

Guides may also usefully include procedures that must ensure a proper implementation of the Regulation, such as:

• Procedures to prevent the introduction of hazards at the level primary production,

• A procedure for the cleaning and disinfection of food businesses,

• A procedure for pest control, and

• A procedure to ensure that the requirement to develop HACCP-based procedures is fulfilled.

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