ISO 9001 and HACCP together: quality management with a food safety plan built in: video

Quality and food safety in one set of records

Food manufacturers, caterers, packers and distributors often need two things: ISO 9001 for consistent quality and customer satisfaction, and HACCP to control food safety hazards. Run separately, the two produce parallel documents, training, audits and corrective actions. Built together, the HACCP plan and its prerequisite programmes sit inside the ISO 9001 system, so those activities run once.

This short film walks through how that combined system is put together, from the site walk and gap analysis to monitoring and verification records an auditor can follow.

The same foundations later support ISO 22000, FSSC 22000 or BRCGS if a buyer asks for a GFSI-recognised scheme.

HACCP is the Codex method, with its seven principles and the plan they produce on a foundation of good hygiene practices, and it fits inside the quality system rather than beside it.

Prerequisites first, then the plan and the quality system around it

The programme confirms the products, processes, sites and the scheme or certificate buyers ask for, then walks the site and reviews current practices, records and any existing certificates against ISO 9001 and HACCP. Prerequisite programmes come first: hygiene, cleaning, pest control and the other conditions every food business needs. The HACCP plan follows, with hazard analysis, critical control points, limits, monitoring and corrective actions, and the quality system wraps around both.

HACCP monitoring, verification and corrective actions then run through the ISO 9001 processes, with hygiene, monitoring, complaints and nonconformities in one place and quality and food safety evidence ready for customer and retailer audits. Whether HACCP certification is accredited depends on the country and the certification body, so that is checked against what buyers accept before anything is signed. Where a retailer asks for BRCGS or FSSC 22000, HACCP alone is usually not enough, but the same foundations support ISO 22000, FSSC 22000 or BRCGS when buyers ask for them.

A Sterling engagement team carries both parts of the programme, quality and food safety, in one Effivity workspace and for one agreed fee; the certification body, not Sterling, audits and decides.