Final answer:
HACCP ensures food safety by identifying critical control points and establishing critical limits to prevent hazards. Monitoring and corrective actions maintain safety and are based on scientific evidence.
Step-by-step explanation:
The HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) system is a preventive approach to food safety that identifies potential hazards in production and designates critical control points where actions are essential to prevent, eliminate, or reduce hazards to acceptable levels. By defining critical limits for these control points — such as specific temperatures, times, or pH levels that must be met to ensure food safety — the HACCP system ensures that food producers systematically check these requirements throughout the production process. Functional critical limits are based on scientific principles and regulatory standards and are crucial for the prevention of hazards such as bacterial contamination, chemical residues, and foreign object inclusion. Monitoring these limits and taking corrective actions when they are exceeded helps in maintaining food safety. For example, using a thermometer to ensure food reaches a high enough temperature to kill bacteria is an application of checking critical limits in practice. While these systems were developed under unique conditions, such as for NASA's space programs, they have since become standard practice in many food industry settings.