In HACCP, what is a Critical Control Point (CCP)?

• A. A random check performed during production.
• B. A step in which QA approves the product after processing.
• C. A step at which control can be applied to prevent, eliminate, or reduce a food safety hazard to an acceptable level.
• D. A post-process step for labeling and packaging.

Answer: (C)

A Critical Control Point is a step in the process where you can apply a control to prevent, eliminate, or reduce a food safety hazard to an acceptable level. This means that at that specific point, acting helps ensure the hazard is kept under control, and there are measurable limits, ongoing monitoring, and corrective actions if the limit isn’t met. The idea is to target the point where failure would directly impact safety, not just inspect or label later.

For example, cooking foods to a specific internal temperature is a CCP because not reaching that temperature can allow harmful pathogens to survive, so the control (the cooking step and its temperature) directly prevents illness.

Why the other options don’t fit: a random check is just a sporadic verification and doesn’t represent a point in the process where a control is applied to manage a hazard;QA approval after processing is a quality assurance step, not an active control during production; post-process labeling and packaging occur after processing and don’t address hazards that could arise during processing itself.