HACCP and Temperature

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. HACCP is a risk management methodology used across many industries and for the purpose of this blog, in the food and related industries for the control of food safety hazards to acceptable risk levels.

At its simplest, It focuses on determining where things can go wrong (“Hazard Analysis”) and working out where it is practical to control and monitor the process (“Critical Control Point”) to ensure things don’t go wrong.

So for food, temperature is an obvious risk. Refrigeration and heating are two methods to minimise risks and temperature can be monitored to ensure compliance.

To complicate matters a bit, the term “HACCP Compliant” is used. For temperature monitoring, it was acknowledged that you can’t measure the temperature perfectly, but if you are using a thermometer or temperature logger then it should be reasonably close (or accurate). So in the Australian standards this was set at 1°C. So a HACCP Compliant Thermometer or HACCP Compliant Temperature Logger must have an accuracy of 1° or better.

If you buy a thermometer or temperature logger and it does not state the accuracy on it, then it is not compliant.

And for the record, all OnSolution loggers are HACCP Compliant.