HACCP Certification

HACCP is a preventive approach to food safety: identify where in the process a hazard could make the product unsafe, control those points, and prove the control worked. It replaces end-product testing, which can only tell you a batch was already contaminated, with control at the steps where contamination happens.

It does not make food risk-free. It brings identified hazards down to acceptable levels and provides evidence that the controls operated — which is what a regulator or a client asks to see.

Why Saudi food businesses certify

In the UAE, HACCP is closer to a licensing requirement than a voluntary standard. Dubai Municipality's food safety regime requires HACCP-based food safety management for food establishments, and Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority applies equivalent requirements in the emirate. Beyond regulation, hotel groups, retailers, catering contracts and government supply agreements routinely require it before a supplier is approved.

Dubai requirements

Dubai Municipality operates a food safety regime under which food establishments are required to implement a HACCP-based food safety management system, with grading and inspection carried out against it. Establishments across Deira, Bur Dubai, Business Bay, Jumeirah, Al Quoz and the free zones fall within it, and the food control team inspects against the documented plan rather than against general good practice. Certification provides the documented, independently audited basis that inspection expects to find.

Abu Dhabi requirements

In Abu Dhabi, the Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) applies equivalent requirements across the emirate, including Abu Dhabi city, Al Ain and Al Dhafra. Food establishments, central kitchens and catering operations serving government facilities, schools and healthcare sites are routinely required to hold HACCP certification as a condition of contract as well as of licence.

The seven principles

• 1. Hazard analysisIdentify biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards at each process step, and assess which are significant enough to require control.
• 2. Determine critical control pointsIdentify the steps where control is essential to prevent or eliminate a hazard. A CCP is a point where loss of control means the product is unsafe — not simply a point that is monitored.
• 3. Establish critical limitsSet the measurable boundary at each CCP: temperature, time, pH, water activity. A limit that cannot be measured cannot be controlled.
• 4. Establish monitoringDefine what is measured, how, how often and by whom, with results recorded as they are taken.
• 5. Establish corrective actionDefine in advance what happens when a limit is breached — including what is done with the affected product, decided before the situation arises.
• 6. Establish verificationConfirm the system works: calibration, review of records, testing and internal audit. Monitoring shows the control ran; verification shows it was the right control.
• 7. Establish documentation and recordsThe plan and the records demonstrating it was followed. Without records there is no evidence, and without evidence there is no defence.

Prerequisite programmes

HACCP only works on a foundation of prerequisite programmes — cleaning and sanitation, pest control, personal hygiene, water quality, waste management, maintenance, supplier control and staff training. Attempting to control everything through CCPs, because the basics are not in place, produces an unmanageable plan with a dozen critical control points that nobody can monitor properly.

A well-built plan usually has few CCPs, because the prerequisites handle most hazards before they reach that stage. An audit finding too many CCPs is usually finding weak prerequisites.

Where audits find gaps

Records completed retrospectively, in one handwriting, at the end of a shift. Corrective action recorded as taken without any record of what happened to the affected product. Critical limits set at levels nobody monitors in practice. And thermometers and probes uncalibrated, which invalidates every temperature record they produced.

Who certifies

• Food manufacturers and processors
• Central production kitchens and catering companies
• Restaurants, hotels and hospitality groups
• Bakeries, dairies and beverage producers
• Cold stores, distribution and food logistics
• Retail food operations and supermarkets
• Agricultural producers and packhouses
• Cosmetics and pharmaceutical operations applying HACCP principles

HACCP and ISO 22000

HACCP is a method; ISO 22000 is a management system standard that incorporates HACCP principles within the wider ISO framework of leadership, planning, competence and improvement. Organisations often start with HACCP to satisfy a municipality requirement and move to ISO 22000 when a customer requires a certified management system. The HACCP plan carries across, so the work is not repeated.

The certification process

Stage 1 reviews the HACCP plan, the hazard analysis and the prerequisite programmes, and confirms the scope of products and processes. Stage 2 assesses implementation on site: monitoring records, corrective actions taken, calibration, staff practice observed rather than described, and the condition of the premises. The certificate runs three years with annual surveillance.

Our role and its limits

ITMAD is an accredited certification body. Under ISO/IEC 17021-1 we cannot write your HACCP plan, conduct your hazard analysis or design your controls, and we do not. We audit and we certify. Optional pre-assessment identifies gaps against the requirements without prescribing how you close them.