How to identify CCPs: decision tree with worked examples
The Codex decision tree in plain English, three examples from a real-world process, and how to set critical limits.
A critical control point (CCP) is a step where control is essential to prevent, eliminate or reduce a significant hazard, and where you can monitor it against a critical limit. To find them, take each significant hazard from your hazard analysis and run it through the Codex decision tree, one step at a time. If prerequisite programs can control it, it usually isn’t a CCP.
The decision tree, in plain English
| # | Question | If yes | If no |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Can prerequisite programs (such as cleaning, supplier approval or temperature-controlled storage) control this significant hazard at this step? | Not a CCP. Manage it through the PRP, with extra attention if needed | Go to Q2 |
| Q2 | Are there specific control measures for this hazard at this step? | Go to Q3 | Change the process or product to add a control, then redo the hazard analysis |
| Q3 | Will a later step prevent, eliminate or reduce the hazard to an acceptable level? | Not a CCP at this step | Go to Q4 |
| Q4 | Can this step prevent, eliminate or reduce the hazard to an acceptable level? | CCP | Change the process or product, then redo the hazard analysis |
Paraphrased from the 2020 revision of Codex CXC 1-1969. Apply it only to significant hazards. If two steps together control one hazard, both can be CCPs.
Three worked examples
1. Cooking a meat sauce
- Hazard: vegetative pathogens such as Salmonella
- Q1: no, PRPs can’t kill pathogens
- Q2: yes, cooking to a set core temperature
- Q3: no later step kills pathogens
- Q4: yes
- Result: CCP
2. Receiving chilled dairy
- Hazard: pathogen growth if delivered warm
- Q1: yes, supplier approval and delivery temperature checks control it
- Result: not a CCP. Managed by the receiving PRP, with a recorded temperature check
3. Metal detection after packing
- Hazard: metal fragments from equipment
- Q1: no, maintenance reduces but can’t remove the risk
- Q2: yes, a metal detector with a reject system
- Q3: no later step
- Q4: yes
- Result: CCP
Illustrative. Your answers depend on your own hazard analysis, product and process.
Setting critical limits
Each CCP needs a critical limit: the measurable value that separates safe from unsafe. It must be validated for your product.
| CCP | Example critical limit | Monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking | Core temperature reached and held as validated for the product, for example 75°C | Probe each batch; record time, temperature and initials |
| Cooling | 60°C to 21°C within 2 hours, then to 5°C within a further 4 hours | Temperature at start, 2 hours and end |
| Metal detection | Test pieces (ferrous, non-ferrous, stainless) detected and rejected | Test at start-up, at set intervals and at the end of the run |
Examples only. Cooling limits from FSANZ. Validate your own limits.
Common mistakes
- Calling every step a CCP. Cleaning, pest control and receiving are usually PRPs. Too many CCPs dilutes attention from the ones that matter.
- Skipping the hazard analysis. The tree only works on significant hazards you have already identified.
- Limits nobody can measure. “Cook thoroughly” isn’t a critical limit; a temperature and time is.
- No corrective action plan. Every CCP needs a written plan for when the limit is missed.
When a CCP limit is missed, see what to do in the first hour.
Monitor every CCP, on the floor
Once your CCPs are set, EthicalHub records the monitoring: staff log each check on a phone against the critical limit, and a reading outside the limit opens a corrective action straight away. Sensors can record coolroom and chiller temperatures automatically. On the Professional plan, deviation pattern alerts flag a CCP that keeps drifting.
See it with your own CCPs
A free 20-minute walkthrough. Plans from $69 a month per site.
Identifying CCPs: common questions
What is a critical control point?
How do I use the CCP decision tree?
What is the difference between a CCP and a PRP?
How many CCPs should a site have?
Every CCP, on record.
Monitoring, limits and corrective actions, logged as they happen.