In 1990, the Food Safety Act was introduced. It covers matters related to the production and retailing of food. The Act makes is a requirement for food businesses such as bakeries to ensure that food is produced safely. In 1995, the Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations were introduced and they emphasise the importance of food safety; in particular, the need for a hazard analysis and control measures.

Food businesses must examine their operations to identify hazards and ensure that controls are put in place to ensure that the risks of food contamination are reduced to a safe level or, better still, eliminated. The food industry in Britain and Europe generally use what is known as a HACCP system to identify contamination hazards, identify measures to control these hazards and implement monitoring procedures to verify the controls are working.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)
HACCP was developed in the 1960s for the US manned space programme to develop safe food for astronauts. It was vital to ensure the safety of the food for the astronauts because medical facilities on a spacecraft were limited and aborting a mission because of illness or injury would have been hugely expensive and possibly fatal for the astronaut. A system was developed that examined what could potentially go wrong at every stage in the production (the hazards) and what controls could be put in place to control the hazards: the HACCP system was born. It is now an internationally recognised system for ensuring food safety and five of the seven key principles of HACCP are included in the Food Safety Act (General Food Hygiene) 1995 regulations. In the next few years it is likely that HACCP will become a legal requirement for all food establishments in the European Union.

HACCP works by taking a carefully staged approach:

• Examine and describe the production process
• Determine what hazards could occur at each step
• Decide on the control measures - Determine which steps are critical control points (CCPs)
• Establish a monitoring system
• Decide on corrective action if the system fails to control the hazards
• Verify the system to ensure it works
• Keep written records
• Review the system to ensure that it is still relevant and controls the hazards.

What types of hazards are there in breadmaking?

• Physical hazards, such as metal, stones, glass, hard plastic
• Chemical hazards, such as lubricants (oil and greases), cleaning chemicals, etc.
• Microbiological hazards. Fortunately, there are very few microbiological hazards for bread. This is due to the high heat used to bake the product and the nature of the product.
• Allergens, such as sesame seeds and nuts, if these are ingredients in the product, plus other known allergens. However, we make every attempt to alert our consumers of any potential allergens.

Critical control points (CCPs) in the bakery

Critical control points are steps at which control can be applied and is essential to prevent or eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level. If the controls applied are not adequate, contaminated food may go out to the consumer. This is why these steps are critical to food safety.

Metal detection

• A piece of equipment that detects metal in food. The wrapped loaf is passed through a metal detector at the end of the production process.

Sieving

• Bagged ingredients, such as minor ingredients and improvers, are passed through a fine sieve to remove any material that may have got into the raw ingredient, such as metal, wood, stones, etc.