CFA Best Practice Guidelines for the Production of Chilled Food - 4th Edition (The CFA Guidelines)

CFA Best Practice Guidelines for the Production of Chilled Foods – 4th edition (The CFA Guidelines)

The 2006 Best Practice Guidelines offer guidance for the production of chilled foods, in line with EU food hygiene legislation, to provide the fundamental principles for the design of safe manufacturing operations.

The Guidelines illustrate good practice to help the manufacturer to demonstrate that hazards have been controlled and to document that risks have been assessed. The Guidelines include information on main hazards, control measures, HACCP systems, shelf life assessment, decision tree for minimum hygiene status, regulatory requirements, traceability and product recall.

They take an integrated approach based on HACCP providing information on the principles of food safety, pathogen characteristics and hurdles. They also provide specific detail over and above supplementing the British Retail Consortium Global Standard for Food, interact with the International Food Standard, and provide new information and additional sections over the previous edition including:

Cross-reference to CFA’s various other guidance documents, e.g. Water Quality Management Guidance
Incorporation of CFA’s High Risk Area Guidelines (2nd ed, 2001);
New guidance on the microbiological status of products vs. usage and the required hygiene in production areas;
New HACCP Implementation section;
New Shelf life Assessment section;
New EC Microbiological Criteria Regulation summary text referring to the BRC/CFA Guidance on the Practical Implementation of the EC Regulation on Microbiological Criteria for Foodstuffs;
New Traceability section includes diagrams of information types required at different stages of production;
New decision tree usage examples for different types of products;
New pre-employment medical screening questionnaire;
New return to work questionnaire;
New High Risk Area temporary operatives pre-employment training material;
New CFA handwash poster;
New Contractor Hygiene requirements;
Revised Air Quality text updated

For the first time the CFA Guidelines are published in partnership with The Stationery Office and are available through TSOs bookshops and online.