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Currently">
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Currently, several major seafood processors are using
CheckPoint®
TTI's for control of Clostridium botulinum in reduced oxygen packaged
seafood.
We offer assistance to any seafood producer that needs help with formulation
of a TTI section for their HACCP plan. Please call us to arrange for
this free service to our CheckPoint® III customers.
The
HACCP Question
HACCP has
been a puzzle which many companies in the food business have yet to
solve. The puzzle starts with the confusion between existing quality
assurance programs and the vague guidelines for implementing a HACCP
program. HACCP is about safety and not quality, so the
confusion is that natural practices that assure quality will often
be the same as practices which assure safe product. However, the
emphasis is different, both in terms of the program structure and how it
is enforced.
HACCP requires that the
producer identify and control for critical points of product safety.
These points must have some information feedback—measurements of
temperature or some other critical parameter. This information feeds
into a decision, which allows the production process to correct some
condition which affects food safety.
There is another
important aspect - and that is documentation. With quality programs, all
that counts is the actual quality of the product at the point of
sale—marketable quality. With HACCP, what counts is safety and the
documentation which can be used to prove that the producer has
maintained parameters which assure a safe product. HACCP documentation
is the cheapest form of insurance available to food producers today.
Put simply, quality
programs only need to produce marketable quality. Safety programs
must produce the proof that correct safety measures were taken. This
documentation is important for two reasons: 1) safety may be compromised
in the product by later poor handling, and 2) often safe food conditions
are not detectable in the same way that quality problems are detectable.
Unsafe food conditions can be invisible.
At
Vitsab International, we
understand the needs for HACCP documentation and have a full line of
products which will do the measurement job in a cost effective way. We
can help you design a monitoring and documentation program.
The TTI
Answer
Quoted from Food
Safety Magazine (Dec 2000-Jan 2001 Vol. 6[6]):
By recording and visually displaying changes ... TTI's can be
used to monitor the temperature exposure of individual food
packages, cartons or pallet loads, and the data gathered from
each stage of distribution could be used to identify food safety
problems and implement corrective actions at the appropriate
stages."
The great
usefulness with the CheckPoint® I and III indicator labels is that the color change points
in the sequence can be set precisely to change at pre-determined points in a HACCP
program. Color changes are so unequivocal that there is little risk of
misinterpretation. HACCP critical points are determined by the temperature conditions which affect
the growth of key food-safety-involved microorganisms, and incorporates knowledge of the
initial baseline concentration of these organisms. The CheckPoint® I and III
labels can
predict with very high accuracy the current level of microorganism concentrations
given a certain assumption of a starting baseline.
Federal
Guidelines
Existing
HACCP documentation calls for implementation of HACCP programs that
employ TTI type technology as a monitoring solution. TTI labels
are mentioned several times in the proposed HACCP ground beef model, and
have been used and approved by HACCP program coordinators for seafood
applications.
The full
"Federal" story of regulations and structure of a HACCP
program
HACCP NACMC.doc
(comprehensive document - 28 pages).
Need
HACCP Help?
Click our Resources link above for
information on assistance with HACCP program authoring (free). | |||||||||||||||||||