Publication of new General Principles of Food Hygiene (GPFH) - Codex Alimentarius

The most important standard on the safety of our everyday food safety has been renewed. The General Principles of Food Hygiene (GPFH) form the basis for legislation and certification standards for food hygiene and food safety worldwide. The renewal started in 2015 and the fifth version was published in 2020.

Perhaps the most interesting change is that the decision tree for determining Critical Control Points (CCPs) is no longer included. Based on the experience of past years, experts at the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) (CCFH) agreed that the decision tree was too complicated and caused too much confusion.

Another important change is that the new GPFH includes a concept for measures that fill the space between baseline conditions and CCPs. These measures are referred to as "GHPs (Good Hygiene Practices) that requires greater attention." The concept of these GHPs is similar to that of the OPRPs (Operational Basic Conditions Programs) of ISO 22000.

It is also worth mentioning that the standard now looks different. The HACCP system was in an appendix but is now presented as Chapter 2, with the basic conditions programs in Chapter 1. The definitions of HACCP have been merged with those of the basic conditions programs. A simplification has been introduced for the definition of a CCP. In general, it can be said that the basic conditions programs have been strengthened, for example when it comes to allergen control. In the HACCP system, the concept of validation is now related to control measures including their critical limits and to the hazard analysis and the HACCP plan as a whole.

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