Requirements differ by jurisdiction, buyer, crop, destination, activity, and certification scope. Current official rules, pesticide labels, import conditions, and signed buyer specifications always prevail.
Document the product and intended use, draw the process from inputs to customer, identify reasonably foreseeable biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards where relevant, then define preventive controls, monitoring, correction, verification and records under applicable rules.
Provide accessible toilets and handwashing, potable supplies where required, illness and injury reporting, clean protective clothing where appropriate, visitor controls, and training in languages and formats workers understand.
Map agricultural and postharvest sources, distribution, cross-connections and contact uses. Conduct the risk assessment, inspection, testing, treatment, corrective action and records required by current local rules and buyer programs.
Identify manure and biological soil amendments, suppliers, treatment status, handling, storage and application. Prevent runoff and cross-contamination and follow applicable treatment and application-interval requirements.
Assess domestic and wild animal activity without unsafe wildlife practices. Before harvest, evaluate affected areas and exclude fruit where contamination risk cannot be controlled.
Inventory food-contact tools, containers, belts, tables and water systems. Define cleaning, any lawful sanitizing step, concentration or method, contact time, verification, storage and corrective actions.
Approve suppliers, identify every chemical, retain labels and safety information, segregate incompatibles, contain spills, control access, calibrate equipment, manage waste and document inventory.
Use only products currently registered or otherwise lawful for the crop, pest, location and intended market, exactly according to the label and local law. Verify active ingredient, rate, timing, application method, applicator authorization, personal protective equipment, restricted-entry interval (REI), preharvest interval (PHI), pollinator and environmental restrictions, and disposal.
Destination maximum residue limits (MRLs) and buyer restrictions may differ from domestic label permissions; satisfying one does not establish the other. Record field/block, crop, target, product and registration, lot, amount, area, date/time, weather, equipment, operator, PHI/REI release, and harvest eligibility. Obtain qualified local advice.
Validate the actual process and facility. A visually clean surface, a generic sanitizer routine, or a final-product test alone does not demonstrate control.
Verify field assessment, input records and intervals, water status, worker readiness, weather impacts, animal intrusion and destination specification before releasing the block.
Use dedicated, intact, cleanable harvest containers under a documented cleaning and storage program. Do not use chemical or waste containers for fruit.
Design receiving, cull, wash if used, dry, grade, pack, cold storage and dispatch flow to limit cross-traffic, condensate, pests, glass or brittle-plastic hazards and recontamination.
Define what, how, chemical or method, responsible person, frequency, pre-operational release, monitoring, verification, corrective action and records for each surface or zone.
Link harvest block, cultivar, date/time, crew, inputs, pack line, packaging lot, quantity, storage, shipment and customer. Preserve splits, merges, rework and disposition.
Approve forms and versions, make entries at the time of work, correct transparently, protect access and backups, retain for required periods, and retrieve promptly.
Train before work and when tasks or rules change. Record topic, trainer, attendee, language, date and competence check; supervise practice.
Define authority to hold, evaluate, release, rework, divert or destroy lots. Prevent shipment while contamination, label, temperature, residue or traceability status is unresolved.
Maintain 24-hour contacts, complaint triage, lot investigation, regulator and customer notification criteria, product hold, quantity reconciliation, effectiveness checks, disposition and root-cause correction. Test traceability with a mock recall and document gaps.
GlobalG.A.P., organic, or buyer schemes are examples of separate program claims. Obtain the current standard, interpretation, approved certification body and scope. Certification readiness is not certification, and one certificate does not satisfy all laws or buyers.
Food safety addresses hazards in food. Plant-health rules address quarantine pests and may require import permits, phytosanitary certificates, treatments or approved origins. Customs, labeling, organic, pesticide MRL and buyer rules are additional, distinct layers.
Check an item only when objective evidence is current and available for the stated scope. Progress is a planning aid, not an audit result.
Reset clears only this page session. Nothing is stored or submitted.
These links do not replace your local food-safety, pesticide, labor, environmental, organic, customs, export, or plant-health authorities, nor the importer's and buyer's written requirements.