HAZARD ANALYSIS TEMPLATE

Hazard Analysis Template

The first step to the seven comprehensive principles of a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is a hazard analysis. Like any other systematic approach, identification of potential problems and thorough analysis are key steps to creating a robust preventive program. A successful and complete hazard analysis can help HACCP teams create accurate and effective measures to control food safety hazards. Through this step, the HACCP team can focus on which parameters must be studied and monitored to create a complete HACCP plan.

The presence of food safety hazards in a food business is inevitable. The chances of these potential hazards causing problems can be minimized depending on your team's approach to food safety. To help you understand hazard analysis and guide you on how to perform it, you can read through this article and find out more efficient solutions on how to compose it, like the hazard analysis free tool above.

What is hazard analysis?

Hazard analysis is the first step in implementing a HACCP food safety system and is performed through the collection of information on the potential hazards in a food business and studying them. This process aims to carefully assess all of the operations in your food business and identify the potentially present hazards. It includes operations from receiving raw materials up to the distribution of finished products.

After identification, every health hazard will then be subjected to further analysis, such as determining its level of potential severity, the likelihood of occurrence, and its classification as a hazard. These parameters will serve as the basis for the next HACCP principles, such as establishing critical control points. 

Who needs to complete hazard analysis?

Hazard analysis is a critical step for a HACCP food safety program as well as other food safety management for food manufacturers. It is essential to be performed to maintain food safety compliance and for the production of safe food products. As such, hazard analysis must be initiated by any business serving or selling  food to customers.

Regardless of whether the food business is required to implement a HACCP plan or not, hazard identification procedures are essential tasks for the production of safe foods. Food processing plants and food service businesses would significantly benefit from identifying every potential hazard in their business.

Why is hazard analysis important?

Through hazard analysis process, food business teams can properly prepare and create preventive programs to protect consumers from potential hazards and unsafe conditions. When the hazard analysis step is carried out correctly, the probability of causing foodborne illness, injury, or loss of profit, as a result, is significantly reduced.

Hazard analysis is an essential step for a risk-based program, such as HACCP, to work. Through the activities involved in this process, your involved workers can properly plan and prevent the contamination of your wholesome food products and occurrences of outbreaks and food recall.

If your HACCP team fails to identify and analyze a particular hazard, appropriate safety control measures may not be set for the undetected hazard and can harm your entire processing. Regulatory hazard assessment is the process of finding the root causative agents of potential food safety issues in your operation.

During safety inspections, undetected hazards may prove to be significant problems and will merit the attention of a food safety inspector.

How to complete a hazard analysis?

Hazard analysis is a systematic process. Its effective execution lies in the correctness of each step taken to finish the process. Hazard analysis starts right after your HACCP team has verified that your flow chart diagram is accurate.

To ensure that all potential hazards are identified and analyzed, follow this sequence of steps for a hazard assessment form:

1. List all the manufacturing process steps in your food operation from the flow chart diagram.

e.g., delivery of products, cooking process (thermal process)

2. Under each process step, identify every possible food safety hazard and label each hazard according to the types of key hazards i.e., (P) physical hazard, (C) chemical hazard, and (B) biological hazard.

e.g., (P) presence of foreign material residues from food packaging, (M) survival of pathogenic microorganisms after cooking

3. Describe the potential severity of the hazard in question if left uncontrolled and the likelihood of this hazard from occurring. Use the common scale provided in a risk assessment matrix.

4. Clearly identify how the hazard can become a significant problem in the food processor.

5. For processes that are considered to have significant potential to harm consumers, assign appropriate preventive measures.

6. In preparation for the next principle of HACCP, identify whether the process step is critical in controlling the particular hazard with a (YES) or (NO).

Proper hazard analysis evaluates all food safety hazards but only considers assigning preventive measures to hazards that have a reasonable probability of occurring. 

What is the easiest way to analyze hazards?

The traditional way of regular hazard assessments is through manually listing everything and creating tables either on paper or creating a spreadsheet. This process takes so much time and is very prone to human errors. An extensive range of hazard identification and analysis can last up to weeks.

You can use our Free Hazard Analysis Template, which has a built-in gauge for the severity and likelihood of a hazard from occurring and columns where you can clearly assess every hazard. This free basic hazard identification template was made to help HACCP teams accurately analyze and compile hazard evaluations.

You can also use our free flow chart template tool to construct a detailed flow diagram of your operations that you will need for hazard analysis as a step guide. 

Despite the convenience that our free hazard analysis template provides, you would still need to spend more time listing every hazard, analyzing them, and providing justifications and preventive measures for each.

Luckily, our team at FoodDocs has come up with a more efficient digital solution for better recognition of hazards and creating your hazard analysis table. By answering a few basic questions and describing your coordinated process to our software, our system can automatically generate a complete HACCP plan with a comprehensive hazard analysis for your food business in less than 1 hour. 

This digital hazard identification and analysis solution can become a powerful hazard identification tool for your food business.

How to get your hazard analysis and entire HACCP done in 1 hour?

Hazard analysis is just the first step in the long process of building a HACCP food safety plan. This step already consists of several processes, which will only be followed by additional steps from the 6 remaining principles of the HACCP system. 

Getting your HACCP plan done as fast as you can means being able to operate safely as well. This means that having a HACCP plan is a top priority. Building this plan is not an easy task and takes several days and weeks, even with the help of a food safety consultant.

Luckily, our team of food safety experts at FoodDocs has come up with a digital solution. Gone are the days when you need to spend hours, even months, of preparation just to finish a HACCP plan. 

With our digital solution, you can get a HACCP plan in just 1 hour! Using our built-in, customizable HACCP plan template builder, you can get a comprehensive HACCP plan template by just answering a few basic questions about your food business.

Once you are done, our system can automatically generate the HACCP plan template through the help of artificial intelligence and further improve it with our help.

You can get all the following components when you use our digital solution:

• Prerequisite programs

• Basic flow chart of your operations

• Complete hazard identification and analysis

• Established critical control points with critical limits

• CCP monitoring procedures

• Established verification procedures

• Record-keeping and documentation procedures

Screenshot of FoodDocs' digital HACCP plan

What is even greater with our system is that you can further customize every component to add, change, or improve the important information and fit your operations even better. 

Save a significant amount of time from building your HACCP plan by using our digital solution. Comparatively, our solution is 500x faster and 15x cheaper than hiring a consultant to do the job for you.

Join the list of 20,000 customers who have signed up and enjoyed our services by availing of our free 14-day trial now.

Frequently asked questions

To help you understand this topic on hazard analysis more, here are some of the most commonly asked questions.

What is hazard analysis used for?

Hazard analysis is a procedure used by the food industry to identify and evaluate potential food safety hazards and use the information as a basis for establishing preventive and corrective measures.

How do you perform a hazard analysis?

Hazard analysis is performed by listing all potential food hazards in your operations and describing every hazard based on their severity, likelihood, and general category of hazard. After these basic steps, a clear justification of how these hazards can harm public health and appropriate types of controls must be provided.