EHA Group Food Safety and Epidemiology Blog

Critical Control Points

Identifying critical control points in your HACCP system is the step in HACCP that operators need to prevent, eliminate or control/reduce specific hazards.

There are a number of ways to prevent hazards in the processing environment including purchasing food products from approved vendors, ensuring that overhead light fixtures are protected against breakage, washing hands, cooking food products properly, freezing food items for parasite control and ensuring that foods are cooled in the proper manner.

Physical Hazards

Certainly I am not the only person that has gotten a hair in their food while eating at a restaurant, but over the years, I have also found several other physical hazards of interest including bone fragments, wood chips, pieces of metal scrub pads and a screw.

These are all considered physical hazards. The pieces of metal scrub pad were found in a bowl of pasta. I surmise that the source was the kettle in which the pasta was cooked and the scrub pad piece had remained in the kettle after it had been cleaned.

The screw was found inside a glass of ice water. Further investigation by wait staff revealed that the screw had fallen from the inside deflector plate within the ice-making machine and cross contaminated the potable ice supply.