Food Safety Management Systems and Active Managerial Control
Domain 7 tests how a manager builds and verifies food safety controls rather than relying on inspections alone. Expect HACCP principles, active managerial control, critical limits, monitoring, corrective actions, and records.
HACCP principles
- Conduct a hazard analysis.
- Determine critical control points.
- Establish critical limits.
- Monitor each critical control point.
- Establish corrective actions.
- Verify the system works.
- Keep records.
Active managerial control
- Identify risks specific to the operation, such as cooling, holding, or cross-contamination.
- Assign monitoring tasks, frequencies, and responsible employees.
- Train staff and retrain when monitoring shows drift.
- Verify with records, calibration checks, and periodic review.
Worked example
A cold-holding unit must keep potato salad at 41°F or below. The critical limit is 41°F. Staff check and log the temperature every 4 hours. If the salad is 46°F, the corrective action is to discard it or rapidly cool it only if it has been above 41°F for less than 4 hours and the jurisdiction allows that option. The manager verifies logs and recalibrates the thermometer.
Traps
HACCP is not just paperwork; monitoring must trigger corrective action. Verification is not the same as monitoring. A critical limit must be measurable, such as a temperature or time, not “keep food cold.”