Back to Oil Free home page

HACCP - Food Grade Compressed Air

Food Hygiene Drivers

European food hygiene laws are introduced into UK law and are the key drivers to compliance by food business operators. Compliance with the law began on: England - 1 January 2006 Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland 11 January 2006

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 2059 - The Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2005 Scottish Statutory Instrument 2006 No. 3 - The Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations 2006 Welsh Statutory Instrument 2006 No. 31 (W.5) - The Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006 Statutory Rule 2006 No. 3 - The Food Hygiene Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 All have a SCHEDULE 2 - SPECIFIED COMMUNITY PROVISIONS This makes direct reference to a European Regulation which introduces the requirement for a hazard analysis process.

European Law and HACCP

The European Regulation 852/2004 and specifically Article 5(1) which identifies the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points process (HACCP) that food business operators put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure or procedures, which are as follows:

a. Identifying any hazards that must be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable levels;
b. Identifying the critical control points at the step or steps at which control is essential to prevent or eliminate a hazard or to reduce it to acceptable levels;
c. Establishing critical limits at critical control points which separate acceptability from unacceptability for the prevention, elimination or reduction of identified hazards;
d. Establishing and implementing effective monitoring procedures at critical control points;
e. Establishing corrective actions when monitoring indicates that a critical control point is not under control;
f. Establishing procedures, which shall be carried out regularly, to verify that the measures outlined in subparagraphs (a) to (e) are working effectively; and
g. Establishing documents and records commensurate with the nature and size of the food business
h. To demonstrate the effective application of the measures outlined in subparagraphs (a) to (f). When any modification is made in the product, process, or any step, food business operators shall review the procedure and make the necessary changes to it.

Guides to Good Practice

The European Regulation identifies the usefulness of good practice guides and asks that; Member States shall encourage the development of national guides to good practice for hygiene and for the application of HACCP principles. The dissemination and use of both national and Community guides shall be encouraged. Nevertheless, food business operators may use these guides on a voluntary basis.

BCAS Code of Practice

The BCAS code of practice is such a guide and although it is voluntary the HACCP process is mandatory. It should be remembered however that the BCAS code of practice will enable the food business operator to meet the needs of points a) to g) above where compressed air is identified as being involved in the food business operators activities. Contact BCAS or our offices if you wish to purchase a copy of this guide.