Workers can inadvertently cause a food safety hazard if they do not follow written practices.

Written practices

Workers can inadvertently cause a food safety hazard if they do not follow written practices. This good agricultural practice applies to all farms.

What needs to be done


Provide written practices for tasks that impact food safety.

How to do it


Why write practices:

• To identify duties and tasks that workers are to perform
• To help maintain quality, consistency and safety of food products:
  • To reduce the likelihood of mistakes that can cause delays, cost money or make people ill
  • To ensure that all regulations that may apply are followed
• To provide effective training tools for new workers or refresher training for current workers
• To serve as reference material in the case of an audit
• To provide a snapshot of how you are meeting food safety requirements in your operation

What do written practices look like?

Use a template for written practices so that all practices have a similar look and include all the required information. A written practice should include the following:

Tips for writing effective practices:

• Be concise and to the point
• Be practical and test the practices on the machinery being used or the area of production involved
• Use pictures or graphics where possible to clearly demonstrate tasks
• Record the date on every practice to show how current it is
• Identify the author of the practice

Posting practices

Post your written practices in a clearly visible location to:

• Allow new workers to refer to the practices easily
• Enable co-workers to coach each other on the proper way to perform a task
• Highlight regulatory requirements for food safety (for example, proper disposal of farm wastes, deadstock)

Reviewing and updating

Practices should be reviewed periodically and updated when:

• New duties or food safety requirements are implemented
• Changes need to be made to a process or task
• Corrective action needs to take place in the event of a food safety recall

Contingency plans

Providing workers with special instructions for when things go wrong can be part of a written practice or separately, and could include:

• A list of emergency contacts
• Actions to take immediately
• Additional records that need to be completed

Sample written practices

Some examples of written practices are below for you to use as guides. They can be used as they are, or modified to suit the needs of your farm. The examples are for the following good agricultural practices:

• Written practices template
• Sample A Worker policy
• Sample B On-farm good food safety practices poster
• Sample C  Remember you are working with food sign
• Sample D  Hand washing
• Sample E Hand washing poster
• Sample F  Visitors must report to farm office before proceeding poster
• Sample G  Water treatment
• Sample H  Cleaning and sanitizing
• Sample I Important phone numbers poster
• Sample J  Recall procedure plan