A complete HACCP plan written for your products and your operation, not adapted from a template. Flow diagrams, hazard analysis, critical control points, limits, monitoring and the record templates your team will use.
HACCP plan development is the process of building a complete food safety plan for a specific operation, following the twelve steps set out in the Codex Alimentarius General Principles of Food Hygiene. It covers assembling the team, describing the product, drawing and confirming the process flow, analysing hazards at every step, determining critical control points, setting validated critical limits, and establishing monitoring, corrective action, verification and records. The finished plan is written to satisfy both the food law of the markets you sell in and the certification standard you hold.
A plan built from your process and a plan adapted from a template are treated very differently at audit. The difference is between someone else's. An auditor compares what the plan says against what you do in practice, and where the two disagree the plan is the finding. That is why a template with your company name typed into it usually costs more to repair than a plan costs to build.
HACCP plan development produces a complete, implementable plan built to the twelve Codex steps, written for your operation and to the standard you name. Delivered remotely in any language, and quoted on scope.
The Codex sequence is followed in order, because each step depends on the one before it. The first five are preliminary steps and the last seven are the Codex principles.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Assemble the HACCP team | The people with knowledge of the product, the process and the hazards, with roles and authority recorded. Competence is documented, because auditors check it. |
| 2. Describe the product | Composition, physical and chemical properties, processing, packaging, shelf life, storage and distribution conditions, for each product family. |
| 3. Identify intended use | Who eats it, how it is prepared, and whether any vulnerable group is among the intended consumers. This changes which hazards are significant. |
| 4. Construct a flow diagram | Every step from goods in to dispatch, including rework, blending, storage, delays and anything leaving or re-entering the process. |
| 5. Confirm the flow diagram on site | The diagram is checked against the operation as it runs, across shifts. This step is skipped regularly, and it invalidates everything after it. |
| 6. Conduct a hazard analysis | Biological, chemical, physical, allergen and radiological hazards at every step, with the significance decision justified in writing, never asserted. |
| 7. Determine the critical control points | Decision logic applied and recorded, with each control classified as a CCP, an operational prerequisite or a prerequisite programme. |
| 8. Establish critical limits | Measurable values that separate acceptable from unacceptable, achievable in production and supported by validation evidence that applies to your process. |
| 9. Establish a monitoring system | Who monitors, how, how often, with what equipment, and where the result is recorded. |
| 10. Establish corrective actions | What happens to the process and to the affected product when a limit is breached, including who decides and who is informed. |
| 11. Establish verification procedures | Activities confirming the plan works, distinct from monitoring, with results reviewed by someone able to act on them. |
| 12. Establish documentation and records | The plan itself plus the record templates that prove each element operated, with retention periods defined. |
Step five, confirming the flow diagram against the operation as it runs. A hazard analysis built on an unconfirmed diagram assesses steps that are not the steps being run, which makes everything after it unreliable.
Everything below is produced and handed over as one indexed set, ready to implement and ready to put in front of an auditor.
| Document | What it contains |
|---|---|
| HACCP scope and team record | Scope statement, team members, roles, authority and recorded competence. |
| Product descriptions | One per product family, covering composition, use and distribution. |
| Process flow diagrams | Drawn per product family and confirmed against the operation. |
| Hazard analysis tables | Every step, every hazard category, with justification recorded. |
| CCP determination record | Decision logic applied per control, with the reasoning retained. |
| HACCP control chart | Critical limits, monitoring, corrective action and verification per CCP. |
| Supporting procedures | The procedures the plan depends on, written to operator level. |
| Blank record templates | Designed so they get completed correctly under production conditions. |
Missing information does not stop the work. It changes how long it takes, because anything you cannot supply has to be established during development instead.
Full recipes with percentages, product specifications, packaging details and declared shelf life for each product family in scope.
How the product is made, step by step, including equipment, parameters, holding times and any rework or reprocessing routes.
Any current procedures, prerequisite programmes, cleaning schedules, monitoring records or previous HACCP work, even if incomplete.
Raw material specifications and supplier allergen declarations, since hazards arriving with ingredients belong in the analysis.
Anything you already hold that supports a critical limit, including thermal process studies, challenge testing, analytical results or supplier data.
Remote development works from a video walkthrough or detailed photographs. Step five requires the flow to be confirmed against reality one way or another.
Businesses frequently ask for one when they need the other. This is the difference.
| Plan development | Plan review | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Your process, with no usable plan in place | An existing plan that needs checking |
| Flow diagrams | Drawn and confirmed as part of the work | Assessed, not redrawn |
| Hazard analysis | Built from scratch across every step | Assessed for coverage and justification |
| Output | A complete plan you can implement | Findings plus replacement wording |
| Typical trigger | No plan, or a template with your name on it | Plan exists but has never been checked |
| Relative cost | Higher, because more is produced | Lower, because the plan already exists |
Template plans are among the most common starting point and the most common reason a business ends up commissioning development. These are the six failures they share.
Template plans describe a generic operation. An auditor compares the plan against what you do in practice, and where they disagree the plan is the finding. This is one of the most common reason a bought plan fails.
A template lists hazards typical of a sector. It cannot know your ingredients, your suppliers, your equipment or your layout, so the hazards genuinely present in your operation are missing and hazards you do not have are included.
Templates state conclusions. The reasoning that makes a conclusion defensible was never written, because it would have to be specific to a business the template author never saw.
A limit that works on one piece of equipment with one formulation is not evidence for yours. Template limits are unvalidated by definition.
Templates map a clean linear flow. Real operations have rework loops, blending, holds and returns, each carrying allergen, microbiological and traceability implications.
Record templates designed around a generic process ask for values your operation does not measure, so they get completed incorrectly or not at all.
Food manufacturers, processors, packers, food supplement producers and catering operations that need a plan built properly the first time. It suits businesses where nothing usable exists yet, and businesses where repairing the current plan would cost more than starting again.
You have no HACCP plan and food law or a customer now requires one.
Your existing plan is a downloaded template with your company name typed into it.
You are launching a process or product family the current plan does not cover.
You are moving from a basic hygiene system to a certification standard.
The previous plan was written by someone who has left and nobody can defend it.
An auditor has said the plan needs rebuilding instead of patching.
You are opening a new site and need a plan before production starts.
A customer audit has found the plan does not describe your actual process.
Quoted on scope, never sold at a list price, because the work scales with your process and not with the service name. These factors determine the price.
The plan is developed and handed over. Implementing it, training your team on it and generating laboratory validation data for critical limits are separate. Where a limit requires laboratory validation or a recognised process authority, such as low acid canned food thermal processing, the plan states so explicitly and never leaves the gap unmarked.
These are the primary sources this work is built on. Where a market you sell into has its own requirement, that takes precedence and we assess against it.
Assemble the HACCP team, describe the product, identify the intended use, construct a flow diagram, confirm the flow diagram on site, conduct a hazard analysis, determine the critical control points, establish critical limits, establish monitoring, establish corrective actions, establish verification procedures, and establish documentation and records. The first five are preliminary steps and the last seven are the Codex principles. All twelve are followed during development.
By working through the twelve Codex steps in order, because each depends on the one before it. The plan starts with the team and the product description, moves to a flow diagram confirmed against the real operation, then analyses hazards at every step, determines which controls are critical, sets limits supported by evidence, and finishes with monitoring, corrective action, verification and records. Skipping the preliminary steps is why most self written plans fail.
A single product family with a short process moves quickly. Multiple product families, long process flows or several sites take considerably longer. The largest variable is how much usable information already exists. A business with current recipes, specifications and accurate flow diagrams moves much faster than one starting from nothing.
Yes, and many businesses do. It requires someone with HACCP training, technical knowledge of the process, and enough time to do the hazard analysis properly instead of quickly. Where plans written in house fail is usually the same places: the flow diagram was never confirmed on site, significance decisions were not justified in writing, and critical limits came from a guidance document with no evidence behind it.
In most countries, yes. The Codex principles have been written into national food law across the great majority of jurisdictions, so a documented HACCP based system is a legal obligation for most food businesses wherever they operate. The route differs by country. In the European Union it comes through Regulation (EC) 852/2004, in the United States through FSMA preventive controls, and elsewhere through national food safety acts and sector regulations.
Development starts from your process and builds the plan from nothing, including flow diagrams and the full hazard analysis. A review starts from a plan you already have and corrects it, returning findings and replacement wording. If your plan is a template with your company name typed into it, development usually costs less than repairing it.
Recipes with percentages, product specifications, a description of how the product is made including equipment and parameters, raw material specifications and supplier allergen declarations, any existing procedures or prerequisite programmes, and any validation evidence you already hold. Missing information does not stop the work, it just changes how long it takes.
Yes, for almost all of it. The one step that needs the operation itself is confirming the flow diagram, which is done through a video walkthrough, detailed photographs, or a site visit where the process is complex enough to warrant one. Everything else works from documents and discussion.
People who between them know the product, the process, the equipment and the hazards. In practice that usually means production, quality or technical, engineering or maintenance, and someone with authority to commit resources. A team of one is accepted in very small businesses, though the competence behind it has to be documented.
The legal obligation applies regardless of size in most jurisdictions, though what satisfies it scales. Small operations with simple processes may be covered by a simplified HACCP based procedure or a recognised sector guide. Certification standards do not scale down in the same way, so a small business seeking certification needs a full plan.
The plan is built to the standard named at scoping, whether that is BRCGS, IFS Food, FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, SQF or FSMA. Each has its own expectations for documentation, validation evidence and review frequency, which is why the standard is confirmed before development begins and never assumed.
The plan is walked through with your team so the people who have to run it understand it. After that it is yours to implement. Implementation support, training, and internal auditing against the new plan are quoted separately, and many businesses handle implementation themselves once the plan makes the requirements concrete.
Confi Food assigns work by subject. HACCP, labelling, certification standards, regulatory compliance, supplier assurance and monitoring are separate disciplines, and each piece goes to someone who works in that area. Every deliverable is reviewed internally by a second specialist before it reaches you.
Our technical positions are built from primary sources, meaning the legislation, the competent authority, Codex Alimentarius, the certification scheme owner or the relevant standards body. We set out how that works in our technical review and editorial policy, and what happens at each stage of an engagement in how Confi Food works.
An independent technical review of your existing HACCP plan, checking that the hazard analysis holds and that the CCPs are genuinely the right ones.
Read about HACCP Plan Review →A focused review of the hazard analysis itself, which is where most HACCP plans fail an audit.
Read about Hazard Analysis Review →A review of the prerequisite programmes underneath your HACCP plan, since a hazard analysis is only as sound as the PRPs it assumes.
Read about Prerequisite Programme Review →Certificated course covering hazard analysis, CCP determination and plan maintenance.
View Certified HACCP Manager →Certificated course covering building a food safety management system to a GFSI standard.
View Certified FSMS Implementation Manager →Expert HACCP consulting worldwide. HACCP plan development, hazard analysis, CCP determination, validation, internal audits and training for food businesses of all sizes.
See HACCP Consulting →Expert FSMA consulting worldwide. Preventive Controls for Human Food, HARPC food safety plans, PCQI support, FSMA 204 traceability and FDA compliance for food businesses.
See FDA FSMA Consulting →Expert ISO 22000 consulting worldwide. Gap assessments, FSMS design, internal audits, mock certification audits and ongoing compliance support for food businesses of...
See ISO 22000 Consulting →Tell us about your products and process and receive a written quote covering the scope, the timeline and the price.