HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point) is an internationally approved systematic method to build up a safe hygiene control system. The method is used all over the world, e.g. within food producing companies, the hospital sector and other trades where high demands for hygiene safety are made, and where the demand exist for being able to prove that the produced goods do not constitute any health risk.

The HACCP system is developed in the sixties by NASA who uses the method to secure that the food used in the space travel program is always of the highest quality and can never involve any health risk, considering that a sick astronaut is nothing worth.

In Denmark the HACCP method and the demands for a hygiene control system are described in EN ISO 22000, applying to food producing companies and their sub-contractors.  

The HACCP method is built up in such a way that the systematic examination and going through of all processes from choice of raw materials, purchase, sale, production, installation and subsequently putting into service and start using, result in a hygiene control system proving that the “food security” is first class.

In Danish a HACCP system is also called an “Own Control Programme”, as it is the company’s own hygiene control system that has to ensure that the quality is all right; it is not the authorities who have to control it.

All companies and retailers working with food must today have an approved Own Control Programme.