HACCP Certification Explained: Training, the Plan and Audits

HACCP certification may mean a training certificate, a HACCP or food safety plan a rule requires, or a facility's scheme certificate.

A person earns a training certificate by finishing a course. Where a food safety rule applies, regulators require a written plan and a trained or qualified person behind it. A facility earns a scheme certificate when a certification body audits it against a scheme.

What is HACCP certification?

There is no single HACCP certification. When a customer or an auditor asks for it, your first job is to find out which of the three they mean.

HACCP training certificates

A HACCP training certificate says one person completed a course. The International HACCP Alliance accredits HACCP training programs for meat, poultry and other food products. People who finish an accredited program receive a certificate of completion carrying the Alliance seal.

FDA's preventive controls rule has its own standardized course, developed by the FDA-funded Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance, and participants receive a certificate of completion. Either way, the certificate belongs to the person who took the course, so it leaves with them if they change jobs.

What USDA requires

What regulators require is a plan, built the way the HACCP plan explainer shows, and a trained person behind it. In a USDA meat or poultry plant, whoever develops or reassesses the HACCP plan must have completed a course on the seven principles, including a segment on writing a plan and on reviewing records.

The rule, 9 CFR 417.7, sets the course content and doesn't mention a certificate. When FSIS verifies a plant's system, its activities include reviewing the HACCP plan and the CCP records (9 CFR 417.8).

What FDA requires: HACCP plans and PCQIs

FDA's seafood and juice rules also require a written HACCP plan whenever the processor's hazard analysis finds a hazard reasonably likely to occur, each with its own trained person. Facilities subject to the preventive controls rule, 21 CFR part 117, must write a food safety plan instead, prepared or overseen by a preventive controls qualified individual, a PCQI. The exemptions from that rule are listed in 21 CFR 117.5.

Under these FDA rules, the trained person needs training equivalent to a standardized curriculum FDA recognizes as adequate, or job experience that qualifies them (21 CFR 123.10, 120.13 and 117.180). The job-experience route is an FDA route only, and the USDA rule above has no equivalent.

Is HACCP certification required?

For the facility, no. Where a rule applies, regulators require the plan and a trained or qualified person. When a customer or an auditor asks for a certificate, ask which one they mean.

Facility certification: SQF, BRCGS, IFS, FSSC 22000

Facilities get certified to audited schemes such as SQF, BRCGS, IFS and FSSC 22000. All four are recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative, GFSI, whose benchmarking requirements expect each recognised programme to cover HACCP or a HACCP-based system.

The requirement for one of these certificates comes from a buyer, not from USDA or FDA. A certification body audits the site and issues the certificate: SQF, for example, licenses certification bodies to conduct SQF audits and issue SQF certificates.

Codex HACCP audits and GMP audits

GFSI's list of recognised programmes has no standalone audit against the Codex HACCP guidelines and no standalone GMP audit. If a customer asks for a certificate from either kind of audit, treat it as a separate request. Ask which standard the audit has to follow.

A check to run this week

List every certificate a customer, a buyer or an auditor asked your plant for this year. Next to each one, write which kind it is: a person's training certificate, the plan with its trained person, a GFSI scheme certificate, or a certificate from another audit, such as a Codex HACCP or GMP audit.

Then pull the training record for whoever developed or last reassessed your HACCP plan. In a USDA plant, that record should show a course on the seven principles that covered writing a plan and reviewing records. Under FDA's seafood, juice and preventive controls rules, it should show recognized training or the job experience that qualifies the person. If that person has left, the plan's next reassessment needs someone whose own record meets the rule.

FAQ

Is HACCP certification required by law?

Not for the facility, though where a rule applies, USDA and FDA require a written plan and a trained or qualified person behind it. The plan is either a HACCP plan or a food safety plan under the preventive controls rule. A facility certificate comes from a buyer's requirement, such as a GFSI scheme audit.

What is the difference between a HACCP certificate and HACCP certification?

A HACCP certificate is usually a training certificate: it shows one person completed a course, and it belongs to that person. Facility certification comes from an audit of the site against a scheme such as SQF, BRCGS, IFS or FSSC 22000, and a certification body issues it.

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Sources

• International HACCP Alliance, Accreditation Application for HACCP Training Programs (revised February 2001), section 1: https://www.haccpalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/AccreditationApp.pdf

• FDA, FSMA Training: https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-training

• FDA, Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance: https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/food-safety-preventive-controls-alliance

• 9 CFR 417.7, Training: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/9/417.7

• 9 CFR 417.8, Agency verification: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/9/417.8

• 21 CFR 123.6, Hazard analysis and HACCP plan (seafood): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/123.6

• 21 CFR 123.10, Training (seafood): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/123.10

• 21 CFR 120.8, HACCP plan (juice): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/120.8

• 21 CFR 120.13, Training (juice): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/120.13

• 21 CFR 117.5, Exemptions: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/117.5

• 21 CFR 117.180, Preventive controls qualified individual: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/117.180

• GFSI, recognised certification programme owners: https://mygfsi.com/how-to-implement/recognition/certification-programme-owners/

• GFSI Benchmarking Requirements Version 2024, Part II Implementation Handbook (Part III key elements): https://mygfsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Benchmarking_Requirements_v2024_Implementation_Handbook_Part_II.pdf

• SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing: https://www.sqfi.com/the-sqf-code/choose-your-code/library-of-codes/food-manufacturing

• FSSC 22000 scheme page: https://www.fssc.com/fssc-22000/