Food safety comes with many different pieces of legislation and standards.
The standards include BRCGS, Salsa, ISO and FSSC. Within the legislation and standards, HACCP, TACCP, and VACCP hold a prominent places. It is essential to understand the differences between them. Even though they look the same, you will be able to find numerous differences between them. The understanding you have about their differences will deliver all the support you need to ensure food safety at your business.
Let’s deep dive and learn more about what they are.
– HACCP – Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point
HACCP is one of the most prominent standards related to food safety. HACCP was developed during the 1960s. It was NASA who developed this tool, with the objective of preventing astronauts from encountering food poisoning while they are engaged in a space mission. It was soon discovered that HACCP is an effective tool that anyone can use to reduce the risk of food poisoning and other contaminants entering the foodchain. Since 1971 when HACCP was first debuted it has seen a number of changes but has become the single most recognised food safety management system used in the production of safe food with most supply standards including HACCP as a key element.
The implementation of HACCP ensures that food business operators from caterers to large scale manufacturers evaluate the whole process of food production.
HACCP looks at each step in the production of food and allows the multidisciplinary HACCP team, with the help of the Codex decision tree, to decide which steps are critical to the production of safe food. A critical control point is a step in the process where control is essential to prevent or eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level. Every step from sourcing of ingredients, to packaging and delivery are considered. That’s because it is possible for the food to go through chemical, microbiological, allergens or physical contamination at any given stage. Appropriate steps are taken in order to make sure that such chances are minimized. HACCP also allows for the food safety management to built around prerequisite programmes (PRP’s). PRP’s can include staff training, hygiene, pest control, calibration and many others, these are the corner stones of food safety.
HACCP is an example of a food safety management system and a food safety management system is simply documentation, policies, processes and procedures to create safe food. Some HACCP plans will be complex with many critical control points others can be simplistic it all depends on the style of the operation. HACCP is flexible and suits every style of operation.
– TACCP – Threat Assessment Critical Control Point
TACCP is a relatively new measure available to ensure the safety of foods. However, it is one of the most important aspects of food safety management that we can see as of now. TACCP has been included in BRCGS since version of the 7 Global Standards. The main reason why TACCP was developed is to respond against the increase of food fraud, which we could see taking place within the past few years. The Horsemeat scandal is a perfect example of such a food fraud event.
As mentioned earlier, the main objective of HACCP is to ensure the prevention of food-borne illnesses. Along with that, HACCP focuses on preventing accidental or unintentional hazards that can compromise the safety of foods. However, TACCP is quite different. That’s because it focuses on intentional or deliberate food fraud from taking place.
Intentional food fraud can take place in numerous ways. For example, it is possible to substitute the ingredients with unsuitable ones. On the other hand, it is also possible to pass off a specific foodstuff from another one. Giving out misleading or false statements will also be a threat that will be considered under TACCP. People still do it with the objective of ensuring financial gains. However, such acts are in a position to create a negative impact on public health and consumer safety. Fake or incorrect labeling, along with product tampering is considered under TACCP. It will ensure proper product traceability, which would cover the entire supply chain.
– VACCP – Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Points
Both VACCP and TACCP go hand in hand. That’s because both are important to ensure the authenticity of food products that are available for purchase in the market. In fact, both these are designed to prevent the intentional alternations or adulterations that take place on food. TACCP is focusing more on the adulteration that people do with the objective of financial gains. On the other hand, VACCP identifies how vulnerable different points within the supply chain process are to adulteration. In fact, the process carefully assesses the stages where economically motivated adulteration of products can take place.
There are numerous food frauds taking place out there in the world. Stolen goods, smuggling, adulteration, counterfeiting, mislabeling, and dilution are some of them. It is a must to focus more on these vulnerabilities and make sure that they are eliminated. This is where VACCP would be able to help you.
The principles of VACCP are quite similar to HACCP. However, it doesn’t focus on how to identify the hazards and control them. Instead, VACCP is focusing on how to identify vulnerabilities and control them.
Final words
Now you have a clear understanding of the differences that exist between HACCP, VACCP, and TACCP. As a food business, you need to make sure that you focus on all these three tools and get the most out of them. That’s because all these tools are focusing on ensuring the safety of foods that are available for consumers. Whilst HACCP has a place in legislation, TACCP and VACCP are prominent in standards.
FACT offer cost effective services in all areas of HACCP including consultancy and training courses including Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4.
If you have any questions please get in touch on 0203 870 4470, email us at [email protected] or contact us through social media.
