2- Identify CCP

Background: From Menu to Hazards in your Food Handler Certificate course covers the theory. This lesson shows you how to apply it to your own Food Safety Plan.

Objective: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to decide which steps in your process are critical control points. You will be able to:

• Define a critical control point.
• Use the decision questions to find CCPs.
• Avoid making every step a CCP.

What a CCP is

A critical control point is a step where control can be applied and is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a significant hazard to a safe level. If you lose control at a CCP, nothing later in the process will fix it.

The decision questions

For each significant hazard at each step, ask:

1. Is there a control measure for this hazard at this step? If not, can the step be changed so there is one?
2. Is this step specifically designed to eliminate the hazard or reduce it to a safe level? If yes, it is a CCP.
3. Could the hazard increase to an unsafe level here? If no, it is not a CCP.
4. Will a later step eliminate the hazard? If yes, this step is not a CCP. If no, it is.

Typical CCPs in a restaurant

• Cooking (meat, poultry, eggs, fish).
• Cooling cooked food.
• Reheating for hot holding.
• Cold and hot holding.
• Receiving high-risk foods such as raw shellfish.
• Allergen control on dishes made “free from” an allergen.

Keep the list short. Most kitchens have a handful of CCPs. Hand washing, cleaning and pest control are important, but they are prerequisite programs, not CCPs.