Critical control point

How it is used

Usually shortened to CCP and numbered in the HACCP plan, for example CCP1 cooking and CCP2 metal detection. Each CCP has critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions and records. Teams often use a decision tree to decide whether a step is a CCP.

Example sentences

1. Cooking is the main critical control point on this line because it is the step that kills Salmonella.

2. The metal detector is a critical control point, so it is checked with test pieces every hour.

Common collocations

• identify a critical control point
• CCP monitoring
• CCP decision tree
• CCP record
• CCP verification

Related terms

• HACCPHazard Analysis and Critical Control Points: a preventive system that identifies food safety hazards and controls them at specific steps of production, based on seven principles.
• critical limitThe maximum or minimum value, such as a temperature, time or pH, that must be met at a critical control point to keep a hazard under control.
• monitorTo check or measure something regularly, such as a temperature at a CCP, and record the results so that problems are noticed and dealt with quickly.
• corrective actionThe steps taken when something goes wrong, such as a missed critical limit or an audit finding, to deal with the affected product and stop the problem from happening again.
• hazard analysisThe first HACCP step, in which a team lists the biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards at each process step and judges how likely and how severe each one is.

More terms: Food Safety and HACCP

• food safety
• contamination
• allergen
• hygiene
• cross-contamination
• sanitation
• foreign body
• pest control
• prerequisite program