Everything you need to Know to Digitise your HACCP process
What is digital HACCP?
Digital HACCP is the umbrella term for an emerging range of digital platforms and apps, made with the intention of allowing businesses and individuals to practice food hygiene easily and effectively. These technologies present food businesses with a more efficient, streamlined way of collecting essential food safety data, and provide timely information into hygiene issues, when compared to their traditional, paper-based counterpart.
What are the benefits of an HACCP process?
Having a sound HACCP process, via implementing your unique HACCP plan, is a legal requirement for all UK-based food businesses. Enforced, in part, by periodical audits performed by third party certifiers. These checks determine whether a business is meeting the food hygiene regulations, which vary dependent on business size and type.
Correct implementation of an HACCP plan provides your business with a cost effective means for protecting the integrity of your products, that will ultimately save your business money. Further benefits include the improvement of overall food quality, an increase in teamwork and staff efficiency, and increased customer satisfaction.
Why should you switch to digital HACCP?
Digital HACCP requires no paper
Traditionally, all HACCP systems rely on the collection and retention of food safety data using a range of paper forms and checklists. Whilst this low-tech method requires minimal staff training and is easily portable, processing and analysing food safety data in this manner is generally inefficient, and the completed forms are often susceptible to loss or damage. Furthermore, paper records do not readily support the level of detailed analysis required to assess the effectiveness of hygiene measures. As such, ineffective processes may remain a part of HACCP systems for long durations, damaging business and elevating the risk of hazards developing. Digital HACCP negates these issues.
HACCP records must be archived for a period of up to five years so they can be reviewed as part of the auditing process. With digital HACCP systems storing these files is easily achieved and does not require a large and expensive amount of paper and ink. Furthermore, digital HACCP systems, unlike their paper based counterparts, do not require a large amount of valuable space within the food establishment to be stored.
Finally, information on paper based systems is potentially much more susceptible to manipulation and other fraudulent activities, as paper forms that identify or record non-conformance can easily be changed or “corrected,”. Equally these files can easily be misplaced or misfiled, making it difficult to identify hygiene issues that could affect food safety.
Digital HACCP allows you to save time
As food hygiene practices should evolve with your business it is vital that updates to all steps of the HACCP process can be performed as quickly as possible. Updating digital HACCP is a much quicker, simpler and cost effective process then printing out a new swathe of paper based forms and checklists.
Even without significant changes being made digital HACCP still saves a significant amount of time when compared to keeping paper based records. With all digital forms in one place, many laborious process automated, and all forms easily accessible, apps such as LEAFE can make admin processes 65% faster, thus saving businesses up to 40 working hours per week.
Digital HACCP allows you to improve your business
The provision of detailed analytics, allows business owners to consistently evaluate the effectiveness of food hygiene management systems. This allows businesses to identify which processes require improvement, thus driving their food hygiene to higher levels. Additionally, automated instructions and tips can often be provided as part of digital HACCP. These notifications often alert businesses to safety issues which may have otherwise been overlooked.
Digital HACCP is much more accessible for all team members as forms and data can be shared and accessed electronically from anywhere, at any time. This facilitates the training of food hygiene team members and allows you to track all food hygiene checks/performances by venue and/or team member, ensuring that checks are completed punctually and correctly thus avoiding any potential for underperformance.
Leafe App is proud to be a leader in efforts to bring HACCP practices into the 21st century. By providing clients with a complete digital solution for the collection, reporting, and storage of HACCP data, Leafe enables food businesses to focus on what they do best; giving customers an amazing culinary experience.