Level 2 · Lesson 2

Hazards and
hazard analysis

Before you can control a hazard, you have to find it. This lesson is about the first and most important principle of HACCP: knowing what could go wrong, and where.

Start with the word

What a hazard is

A hazard is

anything in food that could make it unsafe and cause harm to the person who eats it.

That is the whole test. If it could hurt the customer, it is a hazard, and HACCP exists to find it and deal with it.

The four types

Every hazard is one of four kinds

Biological

Bacteria, viruses and moulds. Salmonella, listeria, norovirus. The most common cause of food poisoning.

Chemical

Cleaning products, sanitiser, machine oil, pest treatment. Often from chemicals stored near food.

Physical

A solid object in the food. Glass, metal, plastic, bone, a staple from a delivery box, a hair.

Allergenic

An allergen where the customer does not expect it. For someone allergic, a trace can be life threatening.

You met these in Level 1. Here they become the checklist a hazard analysis runs through at every step.

The distinction people get wrong

A hazard is not the same as a risk

Hazard

The potential to cause harm

What could go wrong. Raw chicken carries salmonella. That potential is always there, whether or not it ever hurts anyone.

vs

Risk

How likely it is to happen

The chance that the harm occurs. Cooking the chicken to a 75°C core makes the risk very low, though the hazard was always present.

Why it matters: a hazard analysis lists every hazard, then judges the risk of each, so effort goes where harm is most likely. You control the hazard by driving the risk down.

Hazard analysis

Different hazards arrive at different steps

Delivery

Bacteria on raw meatPackaging debris

Storage

Bacteria multiply if warm

Prep

Cross-contaminationAllergen transfer

Cook

Undercooking survives

Serve

Regrowth if held warmSanitiser residue

This is why a hazard analysis walks the process one step at a time. You cannot judge the food as a whole, because each step brings its own hazards.

The method

What a hazard analysis does, in three moves

01

List the steps

Map the process the food goes through, from delivery to the customer, one step at a time.

02

Find the hazards

At each step, ask which biological, chemical, physical or allergenic hazards could appear there.

03

Judge the risk

Decide how likely and how serious each is, so the important ones get the tightest control.

This is Principle 1 of HACCP, and everything else depends on it. You cannot control a hazard you never identified.

Principle 1

Run the hazard analysis

Mark every type that could appear at this step, then confirm.

Your turn

Hazard, or risk?

A delivery of raw prawns arrives. The prawns naturally carry bacteria that could cause illness. The bacteria being present is best described as which of these?

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The five things to remember

1A hazard is anything in food that could make it unsafe and cause harm

2There are four types: biological, chemical, physical and allergenic

3A hazard is the potential to cause harm, and a risk is how likely that harm is

4A hazard analysis examines the process step by step to find the hazards at each step

5Different hazards arise at different steps, which is why the whole process is mapped

Sample question

One question from the quiz

What is the difference between a hazard and a risk?

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Two lessons into Level 2

You can find the hazards. Next you will see the seven principles that turn finding them into a full system. The quiz is where you prove what you know and earn a certificate recognised by TrustBite. One payment covers all three levels, so Levels 1 and 3 are included at no extra cost.

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Back to Lesson 1 Next: Lesson 3, The seven principles Training a team? See group options

Hazards andhazard analysis