On 21st March 2003 the company Makprogres celebrated the implementation of a HACCP and GMP system for their industrial bakery operation.

The HACCP/GMP system was developed by IFEG and partly financed by the World Bank Group, through their regional SEED organisations office in Skopje. IFEG's scope of supply comprised the complete HACCP and GMP systems including training of workers and staff, system identification, development of manuals and documentation system.

With this food safety system in place, the company Makprogres is now in a unique position to benefit from obvious export opportunities both into the EEC and elsewhere in the region.

Photo: Niels Rudolph, MD of IFEG International with the Makprogres HACCP Team


Summary of reasons for implementing a Food Safety Program in the Bakery

By implementing a food safety program, you eliminate costs-resulting from poor quality and unsafe food products. Poor quality in a bakery, for example, can be spotted as defective product, wastage, and product returns.

In addition, you save all the other costs associated with poor quality control such as a reduction in shelf life, loss of customers, reduction in repeat sales, production line downtime, excess inventory, and product liability.

In the EEC, the USA and Canada major customers demand that bakery suppliers implement GMP's and HACCP programs. Further, if a bakery supplier intends to export HACCP becomes a prerequisite.

GMP

In summary, GMP's deals with what you do before you produce a product. The five HACCP prerequisite programs focus on premises, transportation & storage, equipment, personnel, and sanitation & pest control.

HACCP prerequisite programs are actually GMP's. An effective prerequisite program will actually decrease the number of CCP's-(Critical Control Points) during the hazard analysis of the product/process. In contrast, HACCP looks at the actual manufacturing process of the product. It is a systematic and scientific approach of controlling food safety during the manufacturing process.