HACCP IN CONFECTIONERY INDUSTRY

The sweet and confectionery industry in India has grown significantly in the last few years. The industry encompasses manufacturing of a variety of sweet products, snacks, sherbets, namkeens and many more items. Popular products of the sweet and confectionery industry in India includes Bengali Sweets, North Indian Sweets, Badam Pista, Bhujiya, Papad, Raj Bhog, Rasmalai, Pista Burfi, Kaju Roll and Ladoo. India's confectionery market is estimated at around Rs 3,000 crore while the organized confectionery market is around Rs 2,000 crore. The overall chocolate market is growing 15% a year, while the growth in modern retail is almost double of that.

To protect your consumers, customers and your brands, it is vitally important that confectioners understand and implement the critical basic components of a strong food safety program. Whether you’re creating a new program or revising an existing food safety program, you will learn the HACCP program.

Quality of raw materials used in manufacturing of confectioneries is very important and will determine the quality of product. Simple visual checks at reception are useful tools to guarantee raw materials of good quality. Presence of condensation in containers or of spoiled packaging material represents a risk.

HACCP is a food safety system in the production process from raw materials to final product where all points (contamination sources) in the process that may lead to problems, such as food poisoning, are listed and focused on, so that accidents are prevented and the situation is improving.

Although the overall goal is to install the HACCP system in the candy manufacturing facility, it is first necessary to make sure that the foundation for the HACCP system is in place. The foundation, consisting of prerequisite programs based on the good manufacturing practices (GMPS), must exist or be developed in order for the HACCP program to be effective. Hence the two related goals for HACCP are to insure that prerequisite programs are in place and to install the HACCP system.

It is noteworthy that although HACCP is a globally accepted system that manages food safety, it is only as effective as the prerequisite quality and food safety component programs that support it.

There are three primary areas of focus in a strong HACCP system: management support, effective prerequisite programs, and resources. Although there is significant overlap between these three pillars, each is essential to the implementation of a successful HACCP system.

HACCP implementation in a confectionery industry as follows:

·        Confectionery manufacturers must conduct a hazard analysis specific to their own product and process. First step will determine if any biological, chemical, or physical hazards are significant (likely to occur), and if their presence carries a level of severity that could lead to illness or injury.

·     A critical control point is a step in the food process at which control can be applied, and is essential, to eliminate a food safety hazard or reduce it to an acceptable level. The accurate identification of a CCP is essential to controlling a food safety hazard.

·      After a CCP has been identified for the process, the next step is the specification of critical limits. Critical limits are basically operating parameters within which the CCP is controlled; they set criteria for acceptable and unacceptable product.

·       Monitoring is the process of assessing whether a CCP is under control through observation and measurement. Accurate and timely monitoring will yield results that indicate a deviation from a critical limit, and adequate time to react to the results.

·         When a critical limit shows a deviation, a corrective action must be taken. Any out of control situation for a CCP warrants immediate follow up action. The actions are normally part of the prescribed HACCP plan, and the documented work instruction for executing the corrective actions should be ready to quickly implement.

·     Verification is a means of regularly assessing the effectiveness of the HACCP system, and providing ongoing confirmation that it is compliant with the food safety program expectations.

·     Record keeping is an essential component of the company HACCP plan. Records provide written proof that the food safety system is operating effectively to control the identified hazards.

      

In the case of personnel, application of the usual good hygienic practices is necessary but must be accompanied by a strict control of movements. If necessary, adequate measures such as hygienic junctions between clean and unclean zones, (requiring shoe changes, for example), should be installed to maintain an efficient separation. Vehicles such as forklift trucks, or tools such as vacuum cleaners, must also be confined to defined zones, clean or unclean. Food safety training should be given to members in each area of confectionery industry. Packaged food products also need proper storage to avoid food contamination.

  White sugar, molasses and pulp constitute three products which are very important for human health. Sugar is either directly consumed or is used as the main component for confectionery purposes. Molasses and pulp are most frequently used as animal feeds and eventually find their way back to humans when the latter consume meat. Therefore, it is of great importance to ensure the standard quality and safe production of sugar and its co-products. Implementation of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) constitutes a crucial step in the latter direction. Identification of critical control points made possible the control of all parameters which could eventually deteriorate the final product. 

If a proper HACCP system is applied, analyses of finished products are performed only for verification. The frequency of sampling must take into account the general conditions described, as well as to the specific features of the factory and the line.results indicate that when the  line is not under control, the HACCP plan should be reviewed.