Building a HACCP team

Jeannine P. Schweihofer, Sarah Wells, Michigan State University Extension, Michigan State University Departments of Animal Science and Food Science and Human Nutrition -

A good HACCP plan consists of more than one person writing something down and filing it in a binder to collect dust on the shelf.

Are you building a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) team? Does your food operation require a HACCP plan? Do you want to learn more about how HACCP can be applied to your business and improve food safety? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, learn from Michigan State University Extension experts during the certificate training Development and Implementation of HACCP and Prerequisite Programs. The 2025 training sessions will be offered virtually and in-person. The virtual sessions will be hosted on February 4-6, 2025 and September 23-25, 2025. The in-person session will be in the Okemos, Michigan area from June 10-11, 2025. Registration is online and limited to 24 participants for the virtual trainings and 18 participants for the Okemos training. This training, held at MSU, will be packed with all of the basics on HACCP. After completion of the course, participants will receive a certificate issued by the International HACCP Alliance. 

For any HACCP plan to be successful, buy-in and involvement from upper management is critical. This includes the need for time, personnel and resources as needed to develop, implement and practice HACCP in an operation. Using a team approach instead of trying to make one person tackle the process is important and can aid in solving problems, creating synergy and improving productivity.

Although a team approach is beneficial, assigning one person to be the HACCP coordinator is imperative to a successful HACCP program. Having this person fully understand and trained in the seven principles of HACCP is important. In addition to technical knowledge about HACCP, the coordinator should have good people skills and be able to guide the team in working together, sharing different viewpoints and reaching consensus. The coordinator also needs to be able to identify what expertise is needed on the team and make sure that there is representation from various departments in the operation.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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