Food Safety and HACCP Consulting Editing and Proofreading Services

An auditor reads the hazard analysis and stops at a line that says a hazard is not reasonably likely to occur. There is no reason given. Everything downstream — the absence of a control point, the monitoring nobody does, the record that does not exist — rests on that single judgement, and the plan has just made it the weakest thing in the building.

We edit what food safety consultants and their clients produce — hazard analyses and food safety plans, prerequisite programme documentation, validation and verification records, supplier approval procedures, audit responses and corrective action plans, training material for operators and supervisors, site and process descriptions, and the documents prepared for certification and inspection. Our editors work on the reasoning that a plan is built on.

The hazard analysis justification is the part of a food safety plan that carries all the weight, and its failure is a conclusion recorded without the reasoning that produced it. Deciding that a hazard needs no control is a bigger decision than deciding that it does. We work through these so every hazard considered and set aside carries a written reason with the evidence behind it, since "not reasonably likely to occur" is a conclusion and the plan needs the argument; so the reason is specific to this process and this site rather than generic, because a hazard controlled by a step at one factory is uncontrolled at another running the same product; so the evidence type is identified — a validation study, a supplier control, published data, historical monitoring, or a process parameter — given that these carry very different weight and an auditor will weigh them; so any reliance on a prerequisite programme is stated with which programme and what it must deliver, as prerequisites carry a great deal of unacknowledged load; so the assumptions that would invalidate the judgement are named, so that a change of supplier or a new pack format triggers a reassessment; so the person who made the judgement and the date are recorded, since a plan reviewed by somebody new needs to know what was decided and when; and so the reassessment trigger is written into the plan rather than left to an annual review. Plans written this way survive audits and, more importantly, survive change.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including plans, audit reports, corrective actions and client information. We are editors rather than food safety practitioners, auditors or regulatory advisers, and we offer no view on hazards, controls or compliance. What we can do is make the reasoning as visible as the conclusion.