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Hong KongHACCP in seven principles, without the jargon
Conduct a hazard analysis, determine critical control points, establish critical limits, establish monitoring, establish corrective actions, establish verification procedures, and establish record-keeping. Seven principles, always in that order, because each depends on the one before it.
HACCP sounds like a system for factories, and it began as one. In a restaurant it is a way of thinking that the exam expects you to be able to apply.
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. Seven principles, in order.
| # | Principle | In a kitchen |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Conduct a hazard analysis | Walk the process for a dish and list what could go wrong |
| 2 | Determine critical control points | Find the steps where a control actually prevents or eliminates the hazard |
| 3 | Establish critical limits | Put a number on each - 165°F, 4 hours, 100 ppm |
| 4 | Establish monitoring | Decide who checks, how, and how often |
| 5 | Establish corrective actions | Decide in advance what happens when a limit is missed |
| 6 | Establish verification | Check that the system itself is working |
| 7 | Establish record-keeping | Write it down, because otherwise none of it happened |
What makes a control point critical
This is the distinction the exam actually tests, and it is a narrow one.
A control point is any step where a hazard can be controlled. A critical control point is a step where control is essential - where losing it means the hazard reaches the customer and no later step will catch it.
Washing lettuce is a control point. Cooking chicken to 165°F is a critical control point, because nothing downstream will fix undercooked chicken.
Ask whether a later step will catch the failure. If yes, it is a control point. If no, it is critical. That one question resolves nearly every exam item on the topic.
Principle 5 is the one people skip
Corrective actions are decided in advance. Not worked out during the incident.
A cook who finds chicken at 155°F at eleven on a Saturday should not be improvising. The plan already says: continue cooking to 165°F, and if it has been in the danger zone too long, discard. That is the difference between a HACCP plan and a wall chart.
Verification versus monitoring
Monitoring is checking the food. Verification is checking the checking.
A cook taking a temperature is monitoring. A manager reviewing the logs on Monday, calibrating the thermometers, and noticing that Thursday evening is always blank is verification. Questions swap the two deliberately.
Where the Code requires a plan
Most food establishments do not need a written HACCP plan. Certain processes do, and they generally need a variance as well: smoking or curing food as a method of preservation, using additives to render food non-TCS, reduced-oxygen packaging, live molluscan shellfish tanks, custom processing of animals, and sprouting seeds.
Those six are worth recognizing as a set, because they show up together in more than one question.
Common questions
What are the seven HACCP principles?
Hazard analysis, determining critical control points, establishing critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions, verification, and record-keeping. The order matters because each principle depends on the one before it.
What is the difference between a control point and a critical control point?
A control point is any step where a hazard can be controlled. A critical control point is one where control is essential because no later step will catch the failure - cooking chicken, not washing lettuce.
What is the difference between monitoring and verification?
Monitoring is checking the food during the process. Verification is checking that the monitoring is happening and working - reviewing logs, calibrating thermometers, noticing gaps.
Does every restaurant need a HACCP plan?
No. Most do not. A written plan, usually alongside a variance, is required for specific processes such as smoking or curing for preservation, reduced-oxygen packaging, shellfish tanks and sprouting seeds.
When are corrective actions decided?
In advance, as part of the plan. Working out what to do during an incident is exactly what HACCP is designed to prevent, and questions test whether you know that.