QA and HACCP systems in herb and spice production 105
GAPs are really about ‘saying what you do’, ‘doing what you say’ and ‘verifying
that you did what you said you were going to do’ on your farm or enterprise. Although
GAPs require the development of consistent practices on your farm and formal
record keeping, the real benefits for growers are traceability and safety assurances.
Should manufactured product be recalled, GAPs provide growers with a recognized
method of verifying whether or not their raw materials were part of the problem.
Product can travel across the globe with traceable accountability that tracks back to
the source. It also provides a mechanism for isolating problems on the farm from the
rest of the production. The GAPs were developed to:
∑ assist with the process of risk identification
∑ aid in the development of appropriate solutions
∑ apply practices that eliminate or reduce these risks.
The HACCP based GAPs, once in place, will:
∑ protect human health by reducing food-borne hazards
∑ increase consumer confidence in the safety and quality of the products they
consume
∑ enhance sector capacity to meet or exceed market requirements.
Establishing core principles
HACCP is a systematic approach to ensure food safety. It targets prevention rather
than detection of problems. HACCP principles can be applied directly to the processing
stage to ensure safety. HACCP is an internationally recognized system that uses
sound principles in choosing corrective and preventive actions for food safety-related
problems. The first step in developing a HACCP-based model is to work through a
seven-point program and customize it to your operation. It would be unwieldy and
virtually impossible for each producer or collector to develop individual HACCP
programs. For this reason the CHSNC identified core principles that applied to the
herb, spice and natural health product industry as a whole. These core principles are:
Principle 1: conduct a hazard analysis.
Principle 2: identify critical control points.
Principle 3: establish critical limits for each critical control point.
Principle 4: establish critical control point monitoring requirements.
Principle 5: establish corrective actions.
Principle 6: establish record-keeping procedures.
Principle 7: establish procedures for verifying the HACCP system is working as
intended.
Three types of hazard
Under each of these core principles there are three types of hazard to be identified
and addressed: biological, chemical and physical (BCP). Biological hazards are
microorganisms that can directly cause illness or death, or create toxins in the food
that could cause illness or death. These include pathogenic bacteria, yeast, mold,
viruses and parasites. Chemical hazards are contaminants that may include residues
from cleaners, agricultural chemicals, nitrates, heavy metals, lubricants and naturally
occurring toxins known as allergens. Physical hazards are hazards that may cause
physical injury to a consumer. Examples include glass, wood, stones, metals, wrong
products in a tank or bin.