Overview
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a food-safety management system built around identifying where contamination or hazards can enter a process and putting controls at those specific points, rather than relying on end-product testing alone. In India it is voluntary: no law requires a food business to hold a HACCP certificate, and FSSAI does not issue one itself.
That second point surprises a lot of founders. Every FSSAI-licensed food manufacturer is already legally required to run a documented food safety management system built on Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Hygiene Practices, under Schedule 4 of the FSSAI Licensing and Registration Regulations, 2011. That is the legal floor, baked into the licence itself. HACCP certification is a separate, buyer-facing layer above that floor: an accredited third-party certification body audits your hazard-analysis system against the HACCP standard and issues a certificate, most commonly under a scheme such as the Quality Council of India’s IndiaHACCP Certification Scheme. FSSAI has endorsed IndiaHACCP as the reference scheme precisely because no other formal HACCP certification exists in India, but the certificate is issued by the accredited body running the scheme, not by FSSAI.
Once issued, a HACCP certificate is typically valid for one to three years, subject to periodic surveillance audits by the same certification body. Miss a surveillance audit or fail one and the certificate lapses — it is a live status, not a one-time badge. This makes accreditation the detail worth checking on any certificate you are handed: a certificate from a body that is not accredited under the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) or an equivalent IAF-recognised scheme is paper that will not survive scrutiny from a retail buyer’s quality team or an export inspector.
CapEasy prepares the hazard-analysis documentation, gap-closes your process against the standard, and helps you select and brief an accredited certification body for the audit. We do not certify, issue or award the certificate — that is the certification body’s role by design, and any firm claiming otherwise is either confused about the rules or hoping you won’t check.
Who it’s for
- Food processors and manufacturers looking to sell into organised retail chains that require HACCP as a vendor-onboarding condition
- Exporters where the destination market or buyer’s due-diligence process asks for HACCP alongside your FSSAI licence
- Institutional kitchens, catering companies and food-service operators supplying hospitals, airlines or large corporate cafeterias
- FSSAI-licensed manufacturers who already run Schedule 4 GMP/GHP practices and want the next credibility layer for larger buyers
- Businesses evaluating ISO 22000 down the line, who want HACCP’s hazard-analysis discipline in place first as the foundation
Eligibility & requirements
- A valid, current FSSAI licence or registration for the unit seeking HACCP certification — HACCP sits above the licence, not instead of it
- A documented flow diagram of the process, from raw material intake through to dispatch, accurate to how the line actually runs
- A hazard analysis identifying biological, chemical and physical hazards at each process step, with critical control points and their limits defined
- Monitoring, corrective-action and verification procedures for each critical control point, with records that are actually being kept, not just written
- Prerequisite programmes in place — pest control, cleaning and sanitation, water quality, staff hygiene and training, calibration of monitoring equipment
- Internal audit and management-review practice, since the certification body will expect evidence the system runs continuously, not just on inspection day
- Selection of an accredited certification body (NABCB or an equivalent IAF-recognised accreditation) to conduct the assessment and issue the certificate
How CapEasy handles it
- Gap analysis — we assess your current process, documentation and prerequisite programmes against the HACCP standard and flag what is missing
- Hazard analysis workshop — walk the process step by step with your team, identify hazards and determine critical control points using the standard’s decision logic
- Documentation build — write the HACCP plan, monitoring records, corrective-action procedures and the supporting prerequisite-programme documentation
- Staff briefing — train the people who will actually run the monitoring and record-keeping, since an auditor tests understanding, not just paperwork
- Internal audit — run a dry-run audit against the finished system to surface gaps before an external body sees them
- Certification body selection — help you choose and brief an accredited body running a scheme such as IndiaHACCP for the formal assessment
- Stage 1 and Stage 2 assessment — the certification body reviews your documentation, then audits the live process on-site; we support you through both stages
- Surveillance planning — set a calendar for the periodic surveillance audits your certificate depends on staying valid across its one-to-three-year term
Documents you’ll typically need
- Current FSSAI licence or registration certificate for the applicable unit
- Existing standard operating procedures for production, cleaning, pest control and staff hygiene
- Process flow diagrams and layout plans for the facility
- Records of any prior food-safety audits, customer audits or regulatory inspections
- Supplier and raw-material specifications, where hazard analysis depends on incoming-material risk
- Staff training records relevant to food handling and hygiene
CapEasy is a private consultancy and is not affiliated with any government authority. We help you assess eligibility and prepare and file your application; eligibility and approval depend on your specifics and the relevant department’s discretion.
