How are CCPs identified during HACCP analysis?

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Identifying CCPs centers on where a control can directly prevent, eliminate, or reduce a hazard to safe levels, and where that control is essential to product safety. To do this, you first map the process and perform a hazard analysis at each step, listing potential biological, chemical, and physical hazards that could occur. Then you apply a decision framework to determine if a control at that step is truly necessary for safety. This framework asks whether the hazard could be prevented, eliminated, or reduced by applying a control at that step, and whether such a control is feasible, verifiable, and monitorable. If the answer is yes, that step becomes a CCP because controlling it is critical to ensuring the final product meets safety standards. Relying on random step selection, choosing steps simply because of expensive equipment, or only testing the finished product does not identify where preventive or mitigative action is actually needed during production.