What are the advantages of implementing HACCP?

If you run a food or drink business in the UK, you’ll likely already know what HACCP is. You’ve probably had it explained to you by an auditor or a food safety consultant trying to get your business ready for certification. 

However, you might not fully understand what HACCP is for. Many food businesses view it solely as a legal obligation; a compliance exercise, or a box to tick before an audit or a visit from the local authority. While that’s not technically wrong, it only paints half the picture. 

A properly built and implemented HACCP system can shape how consistently your food is produced, how your business performs against the certifications that open doors to bigger opportunities, and how exposed you’d be should something go wrong. This blog sets out what a well-run HACCP system can do for your food business.

What is HACCP?

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It’s a systematic way of identifying where food safety hazards can enter your production process(es), working out which points are critical to controlling them, and putting checks in place at those points to catch any potential problems. 

The legislation in question is Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) 852/2004, which was retained in UK law after Brexit. It states that every food business operator must implement and maintain a permanent procedure (or procedures) based on HACCP principles. 

Your HACCP system underpins your food hygiene rating, your SALSA or BRCGS certification, and your day-to-day operations. So, getting it right is essential. 

Here are some of the issues that having an effective HACCP system in place can help your business address: 

It’s the foundation everything else is built on

BRCGS Food Safety certification requires a comprehensive food safety plan built on HACCP principles. Section 2 of the standard makes HACCP a fundamental requirement. It means any critical or major non-conformity in this area will result in your business failing to achieve certification until it’s resolved. In other words, you won’t be able to get BRCGS certified with a weak HACCP system. It’s a requirement that can sink the whole audit.

SALSA expects the same discipline. You’ll need to keep up-to-date cleaning logs, hygiene and traceability protocols as a bare minimum. 

Food businesses with weak HACCP foundations usually end up doing the work to prepare for certification twice. Once, badly, under pressure, right before the audit. And again, properly, with guidance after they’ve failed it.

Also, many major grocery and retail procurement teams have made BRCGS Issue 9 certification a supplier requirement, some with compliance deadlines ahead of their own audit cycles. So, if your business is trying to win or keep a contract with a major retailer, a weak HACCP plan can put your revenue at risk.

It keeps you out of court (and the news)

Even an inadvertent breach of food safety law could end up costing your business a few thousand pounds once you factor in the legal fees and court costs, not to mention the bad publicity that often comes with it. 

The fines for food safety offences can range from £100 to £120,000 for smaller food and drink businesses, depending on the severity of the incident and your culpability. The bigger your business, the higher the potential fine.     

While having an effective HACCP system in place won’t guarantee you’ll never have an incident, it does provide a viable defence in the eyes of the law.  

The 2024 STEC outbreak caused 293 cases of illness, including two deaths, leading to a recall of at least 60 types of pre-packed sandwiches, wraps and salads sold in major supermarkets, because of possible contamination with E. coli.No prosecutions followed as the root cause was never identified. However, the UK Health Security Agency noted that the implicated businesses all had detailed, robust HACCP plans in place and no food safety or non-compliance issues were identified. 

This is just one of many examples that show how having a documented, properly verified HACCP system can dramatically reduce your exposure to risk. It won’t make you bulletproof, but it will keep you compliant. 

It protects your food hygiene rating

Most UK consumers are familiar with the green-and-black Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) sticker, which shows how well food businesses comply with food hygiene laws.

Some 45% of food business operators in England report that displaying a 5-star rating has had a positive impact on their business, while businesses with higher ratings are less likely to be responsible for outbreaks of foodborne illness. 

From a consumer perspective, 89% have heard of the FHRS, and one-in-three people say they consider the food hygiene rating when deciding where to eat out.

All three elements of a typical food hygiene inspection draw on your HACCP system in some way. That means your cleaning, monitoring, staff training and corrective action logs all feed into your score. If they’re not up to date, it could cost you a star or two, even if your kitchen looks spotless on inspection day.

It reduces the human and financial cost of getting it wrong

An estimated 2.4 million cases of foodborne illness occur in the UK every year, costing the UK economy around £10.4bn a year. The most common breaches are down to cleaning failures, accounting for around a quarter of all cases, followed by unfit food on premises, and a lack of food safety training. 

An effective HACCP system can help you catch any such failures before they lead to a fine, a product recall or a poorly customer.

It makes the day-to-day running of your business easier

A well-designed and implemented HACCP system removes ambiguity. It means your staff won’t need to second-guess what’s ‘clean enough’ or ‘cooked enough’, as they can refer to your defined critical limits and monitoring points. 

It can also help speed up staff training. It gives you something concrete to train your new staff against, rather than them picking up any bad habits, or ‘this is just how we do things’, from whoever happens to be on shift with them. 

How Beacon Compliance can help

Designing and implementing an HACCP system from scratch can be challenging, especially if you’re just starting out or have no internal technical support to lean on. 

At Beacon Compliance, our team has more than 80 years’ combined industry experience working with globally recognised food brands. We specialise in developing, implementing and reviewing HACCP systems to ensure your food safety management processes are effective and relevant to your operations. We can also provide on-site and off-site technical support to help you get all the necessary certifications in place, whether that’s SALSA, BRCGS  or something else, to keep your business operating legally and efficiently. 

To find out more about our services and how we can help your food business thrive, get in touch to book a free, no-obligation consultation with our team.