Anyone who is responsible for the safe production of food is certainly aware of the Hazards Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) framework, as well as the related Preventive Controls for Human Foods rule under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Food Safety Modernization Act, and how they are both cornerstones of food safety management systems.

Proving food safety is a monumental challenge, if not an impossibility. However, with the appropriate tools and techniques one can confirm, with a high degree of statistical confidence, the effectiveness of a preventive control for reducing a specified hazard to an acceptable level or concentration that is consistent with achieving public health objectives.  

Many of the techniques used in creating a HACCP plan are shared with other types of plans, such as food quality and food defense plans. This article discusses regulatory changes in the dairy industry through the years, including the Grade "A" Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO), the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shippers Dairy HACCP Pilot Program, and the incorporation of the Food Safety Modernization Act Preventive Controls Rule within the PMO.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a final guidance document that is intended to help animal food manufacturers develop hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for animal food in compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

How are you navigating the Preventive Controls for Human Food rule? Take our survey to weigh in.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the world’s global food supply chain and the stakeholders involved.

Food and beverage processors should encourage third-party audit firms to be more critical and eliminate checklists.

E. coli tests of romaine fields where investigators traced contaminated lettuce did not turn up outbreak strains, so the FDA will move to an in-depth “root-cause” investigation for three outbreaks.