HACCP Certification: Hazard Analysis & Critical Control

Improve your capability to consistently meet customer expectations and legal requirements for food safety of products and services.

Certification of your food safety management system as being in line with HACCP principles demonstrates your commitment to consistency, continual improvement and customer safety and satisfaction. These are tangible business benefits that play an important part in building resilience and sustainable business performance. 

The HACCP methodology is a structured, preventive approach to food safety that optimizes efforts to provide the consumer with safe food. It is mandatory in several countries, including the US and within the EU.

What is HACCP?

Applicable to all types of company involved in food production, HACCP is a risk management methodology specifically designed for the food sector by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, jointly established by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a prerequisite under most food safety standards for organizations to develop procedures based on the principles of HACCP.

HACCP involves:

• Developing processes and identifying what could go wrong and what hazards there are to food safety
• identifying any critical control points and areas a business needs to focus on to ensure those hazards are removed or reduced to safe levels
• deciding action needed to remedy non-compliances
• monitoring to ensure procedures are being followed and are working 
• maintaining appropriate records

Benefits of becoming certified

Certification of your safety system to HACCP requirements provides an effective means of communicating with stakeholders and other interested parties. It is an important element in demonstrating food safety commitments under corporate governance, corporate responsibility, and financial reporting requirements. 

HACCP system certification enables your organization to:

• Communicate confidence to the customers, demonstrating that the food is produced by means of safe processes
• Prove that it has taken all reasonable precautions to guarantee the production of safe food
• Allow customers to demand that suppliers are assessed and certified, if they operate in a country with a strong food safety legislative framework
• Reduce the number of audits carried out by customers and, consequently, save management time spent and related costs
• Reduce product waste and product recall
• Improve relations with food safety authorities
• Improve efficiency

Getting started

To be certified, you first need to implement an effective food safety plan suited to your food safety management system complying with the standard’s requirements.  DNV is an accredited third-party certification body and can help you throughout the journey starting from relevant HACCP training to self-assessments, gap analysis and certification services. 

Learn more about how to get started on the road to certification.