FIGARO’S HACCP SYSTEM

SECTION 1 – SYSTEM REFERENCE

PROGRAM INTRODUCTION

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT & TESTING

Spirit of the System

Training

Your Mission

WHAT IS HACCP?

HACCP Principles

KEY TERMS

Overview of Figaro’s HACCP System

Figaro’s Flow of Food:

Figaro’s HACCP Shift Checklist

Corrective Action

Food borne Illness Reporting

Summary

Shift Checklist Instructions

Corrective Action Guidelines

Figaro’s HACCP System

Corrective Action Guidelines

Handling Foodborne Illness Complaints

HACCPTOC

PROGRAM INTRODUCTION

Providing high quality, safe and wholesome food is a serious responsibility of every Figaro’s Pizza employee (Regional Business Managers, Area Directors, Owners, Managers, staff members). Food borne illnesses can happen in any restaurant if proper training, adherence to procedures and follow-up is not management’s top priority; in our stores or any other restaurant.

The procedures at Figaro’s Pizza have been developed to ensure that only high quality, safe and wholesome food is prepared and served to our customers. The Figaro’s HACCP System is your tool for ensuring the critical control points in our procedures are always met. Using this system everyday will provide the focus and follow-up necessary to prevent food borne illnesses and provide safe, high quality food.

Companies that provide the most wholesome, highest quality and most appetizing food in the restaurant industry become leaders in these categories. This is accomplished through:

  • Ensuring that only the highest quality ingredients are provided.
  • Developing and implementing company wide, HACCP-based food safety and quality systems.
  • Developing and fostering a food safety and quality culture within each store and in all parts of the organization.

The benefits of the Figaro’s HACCP System are:

  • Ensures that high quality, safe and wholesome food is prepared and served to our customers.
  • Increases focus on food safety, at every level of our operation.
  • Educates key employees and management regarding potential hazards and CCPs (critical control points) for eliminating, reducing or preventing foodborne illnesses or hazards.
  • Improves quality and reduces waste (many of the CCPs not only control food safety, but will also improve quality and reduce waste).

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT & TESTING

Because the Figaro’s HACCP System is your tool for ensuring food safety, we encouraged and received help from several franchisees in developing and testing the system. The system was previewed and tested…….

Thank you to everyone who participated and provided valuable feedback.

Section 2: HACCP Documentation—Completed HACCP Forms

  • Current Week
  • Current Month
  • Last Month
  • Two previous months
  • Incident Forms

If you have any questions or comments, please contact your Regional Business Manager. The Figaro’s Operations Department is ready to assist you and your team with any and all aspects of managing your HACCP System.

To stress the importance of the Figaro’s HACCP System, all program elements are provided to you in a separate binder and WILL NOT be incorporated into the Figaro’s Operations Manual.

Spirit of the System

Food safety and quality is everyone’s responsibility. All Figaro’s owners, managers and employees must know the proper procedures, why the procedures are important, and constantly check to make sure that everyone is doing their part to eliminate, reduce or prevent food borne illness or hazards. IT IS EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILITY!

It is EVERYONE’S responsibility to ensure food safety. The Critical Control Points and temperatures must be checked and documented on the Weekly Shift Checklist. If something was missed, or if an unexpected wave of business comes in during the time you planned on completing your checklist for the day, don’t “pencil-whip” or falsely fill-in the worksheet, leave it blank and complete it as soon as possible. Do not complete the worksheet just to get the shift checklist done – complete the worksheet because you actually verified the CCPs and temperatures, and took corrective action if required.

Figaro’s owners, managers and key employees will use the Figaro’s HACCP System to verify that all the CCPs are met. IT IS YOUR TOOL!!

Training

Management support and training are the biggest factors of a successful HACCP system.

Remember that food safety is the responsibility of EVERYONE at Figaro’s. Ask your staff the following food safety questions to motivate the use of the system and keep the focus on food safety:

  • Did we meet the CCPs?
  • Did we take appropriate corrective action(s) on the CCP(s) that were not met?

During a Quality Service Report (QSR) visit, your Regional Business Manager will scrutinize your HACCP Program paperwork, but they will verify many of the same CCPs found on your worksheet. They will be looking for evidence that the HACCP System Program are in use at your store.

Your Mission

Use the Figaro’s HACCP System to ensure high quality, safe and wholesome food is prepared and served to our customers. You can take great pride in knowing you are:

Doing the right thing for food safety and our customers.

Using a state of the art system.

Catching employees doing the right things and giving them the positive feedback they deserve.

Thank you for your continued support of the Figaro’s HACCP System and your commitment to preparing and serving safe food at Figaro’s Pizza!

WHAT IS HACCP?

The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system is based on the idea that if biological, chemical or physical hazards are identified at specific points within the flow of food, they can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to safe levels. A HACCP system helps you to do the following:

  • Identify the foods and procedures that are most likely to cause food borne illness.
  • Develop procedures that will reduce the risk of a food borne-illness outbreak.
  • Monitor procedures to keep food safe.
  • Verify that the food you serve is consistently safe.

Prerequisite Programs

Prerequisite programs support your HACCP plan and are the basic operating conditions for producing safe food.

Prerequisite programs or standard operating procedures (SOPs), protect your food from contamination, minimize microbial growth, and ensure the proper functioning of equipment. They may include the following:

  • Proper personal hygiene.
  • Proper facility design.
  • Choosing good suppliers.
  • Creating supplier specifications.
  • Proper cleaning and sanitation.
  • Appropriate equipment maintenance.

Developing a HACCP Plan

A HACCP plan is a written document that describes the procedures a particular establishment will follow. A HACCP plan is developed using the HACCP principles and is specific to the facility, its menu, its equipment, its processes and its operations. The HACCP plan for a product prepared in one facility will be different from the HACCP plan for the same product prepared in another facility.

While generic HACCP plans can serve as useful guides, each facility must develop a HACCP Plan that addresses its own unique conditions.

HACCP Principles

The plan you develop will be based on the seven basic HACCP Principles. Principles one, two, and three help you design your system. Principles four and five help you implement it. Principles six and seven help you maintain the system and verify the effectiveness. Each principle builds upon the information gained from the previous principle. For the plan to be complete, you must consider all seven principles in order.

Principle One: Conduct a Hazard Analysis

Identify and assess potential hazards in the food you serve. This means taking a look at the flow of food (Receiving, Storing, Preparation, Storing, Serving) in your establishment and determining where food-safety hazards (biological, chemical and physical) are likely to occur. Think about how food comes in contact with the crew and equipment in your establishment.

Principle Two: Determine the Critical Control Points (CCPs)

Find those control points in the flow of food that are essential to prevent or reduce a food safety hazard (biological, chemical or physical). To assess whether a control point is critical, determine if it is the last step where you can intervene to prevent, eliminate, or reduce the growth of microorganisms before the food is served to customers. If it is, this is a CCP.

Principle Three: Establish Critical Limits

For each CCP, set standards that food must meet to be considered safe. These are the boundaries for the CCPS; measurable (such as time or temperature) minimum and maximum limits that the CCP must meet in order to prevent, eliminate or reduce hazards to an acceptable limit. Standards are typically based on scientific data, food regulations or expert advice, and should be clear and easy to follow.

Principle Four: Establish Monitoring Procedures

Monitoring confirms critical limits are being met and things are being done correctly. A successful monitoring program will specify: (1) how to monitor the CCP, (2) when and how often to monitor the CCP, (3) who will monitor the CCP and (4) equipment, materials or tools needed to monitor the CCP.

Principle Five: Identify Corrective Actions

Determine clear and specific steps that will be taken when food doesn’t meet a critical limit. Employees must know who is responsible for taking the corrective action, how to perform the action, and where and how to record the action taken.

Principle Six: Verify the System Works

Determine whether or not your HACCP system is working according to plan. Regularly evaluate your plan to (1) confirm the CCPs and critical limits identified are appropriate, (2) ensure the monitoring tools alert you to any hazards, (3) corrective actions are adequate to prevent food borne illness from occurring, and (4) ensure employees are following established procedures.

Principle Seven: Establish Record-Keeping and Documentation Procedures

Develop procedures that specify who should perform the documentation, when it should be performed, and how. You should maintain records obtained while performing monitoring activities, whenever corrective action is taken, when equipment is maintained, and when dealing with supplier specifications. You also need to keep all documentation created while developing your plan.

Training

Training is critical to making a HACCP plan successful. HACCP works best when it is integrated into each employee’s job description and duties. Awareness of the HACCP plan depends on your role in the establishment. For example, you may be responsible for training members of your management staff to conduct activities required by the plan. To do it effectively, consider the following:

  • Help your management and staff understand the importance of food safety and the benefits of HACCP.
  • Train staff (management and employees) to perform specific tasks required by the HACCP plan. A good training program should:
  • Explain the importance of what the staff is learning.
  • Demonstrate steps and procedures.
  • Let employees practice.
  • Give feedback on their performance.
  • Review materials.
  • Test employees on their knowledge.
  • Retrain if needed.
  • Evaluate employees on the job performances as well as their food-safety practices.
  • Encourage employee’s involvement regarding food-safety issues.

KEY TERMS

AHACCP System (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is a management tool used to protect customers and employees from potentially hazardous products. This is a technical way of saying we watch every step of the food preparation process.

The Flow of Foodis the path that food follows in the restaurant from receiving through serving. In other words, when food arrives at the restaurant, it gets stored, prepped, cooked and served. That’s the flow of food!

ACritical Control Point (CCP)is a step or procedure that will reduce, eliminate, or prevent hazards. CCPs are identified, checked and documented at a set frequency.

Ariskis the chance that a condition or situation will lead to a hazard. The food, people, facility and equipment cause the biggest risk to food safety.

A hazardin the restaurant is something that may contaminate food at any time during the flow of food. Hazards include biological (disease-causing microorganisms and toxins such as e-Coli and Salmonella), chemical (pesticides, cleaning supplies, etc.), and physical (glass, hair, bandage, etc.).

Some products at Figaro’s have been identified as potentially hazardous based on the potential for biological hazards:

Pre-cooked MeatsDairy Products

ChickenCheese

Canadian Bacon

SalamiFresh Vegetables

PepperoniIncluding pre-washed Salad Mix

Beef

Sausage

The three common causes of Food borne Illness are: Cross Contamination, Poor Personal Hygiene, and failure to hold or cook food properly (Time-Temperature Abuse).

Cross Contaminationis one of the most common causes of food borne illness. It is the transfer of harmful bacteria from one item of food to another. Cross contamination happens when a contaminated source, such as an un-sanitized cutting board, touches something that was not contaminated (fresh vegetables). Then this newly contaminated object touches something else and contaminates it.

Contamination can then cross from hands to clothing or towel and then back to food. When harmful bacteria from a contaminated source crosses to a food that won’t be cooked further (i.e. lettuce, tomatoes), it can cause illness.

Overview of Figaro’s HACCP System

Figaro’s HACCP Systemwill be the tool you use to control these potentially hazardous foods and ensure that only high quality, safe and wholesome food is served to our customers and employees.

Figaro’s Flow of Food:

Handling and prepping food safely requires attentiveness during all aspects of food prep. Here are some guidelines for keeping food safe as it flows through the restaurant.

During… / Look for…
Receiving /
  • Signs of damage to boxes and containers
  • Temperatures: Refrigerated foods less than 41 F. Frozen foods less than 10F
  • Place potentially hazardous foods in the walk-in and freezer immediately
  • Check frozen foods for ice crystals, which indicates product was thawed and refrozen; potential for harmful bacteria to grow

Storage /
  • All foods must be stored at least 6 inches off the floor
  • All foods should be covered, labeled and dated
  • Do not stack skins in the walk-in
  • Pizza make bar should hold prepared food at 41 F or less (top and bottom)

Preparation /
  • Employees MUST wash their hands before handling/preparing any food products or kitchen utensils
  • Prep only what you need; follow prep charts
  • Follow preparation procedures in Recipe Book
  • Clean and sanitize preparation areas and kitchen utensils before and after preparing each new product
  • Wear gloves when preparing Salads, sliced tomatoes or any other products that will NOT be cooked before being served to the customer
  • Newly prepared product should be put into clean, sanitized and air dried cambros
  • Store pre-cooked meats in original bags under pizza make bar until needed
  • Cambros containing pre-cooked meats and cheese will be replaced with clean, sanitized and air dried containers at least once every 24hrs (before opening or after closing)

Cooking /
  • Cook all foods to the required internal temperature to kill bacteria
  • DO NOT TOUCH food with hands or oven mitts after cooked products exit the oven

Hot Holding /
  • Holding temperature for pizza should be 165 F or higher.
  • Minimum warmer temperature is 140 F; most Figaro’s locations set them between 160-180 F

The Figaro’s HACCP System was designed to be:

Simple:Easy to understand and use

Integrated:Into on-going operations systems

Most of our current daily tasks pose risk to food safety by cross-contamination, poor personal hygiene and failure to hold or heat food properly (Time-Temperature Abuse), so this system is also based on controlling these three hazards at all steps of the flow of food.

Comprehensive:Ensure proper handling of all potentially hazardous foods.

The system must provide comprehensive assurance that:

Basic sanitation is maintained

Temperatures necessary to make or keep food safe are maintained

Critical control points for potentially hazardous ingredients are met

To meet the three goals (simple, integrated and comprehensive) a three component system was developed and tested:

Cross Contamination

Personal Hygiene

Time-Temperature Abuse

The completed Weekly Shift Checklists will provide verification that we are in control of potential hazards in our stores. The forms can be used to prove our compliance to procedures and our focus on food safety. Many local Health Departments will review our HACCP system and compliment your efforts and controls.