Food Defense Plan
Immediately address threats to food production and proactively guard against intentional contamination.
Immediately address threats to food production and proactively guard against intentional contamination.
Published 15 Sep 2021
Food defense is the process of protecting food products from intentional adulteration or contamination which aims to harm consumers, business establishments, or the general public. Food defense is crucial in proactively implementing programs that help avoid food safety incidents, costly recalls, and disruptions in food production.
A food defense plan template is a tool used to proactively determine if the organization has an effective defense against the intentional contamination of food products. Derived from the FSIS, this digitized food defense plan template covers 4 sections:
A food defense plan is a tool used by quality managers to help prevent the intentional contamination of food products. Food defense plans are often associated with food defense programs as a practical guide for mitigating incidents caused by intentional food contamination.
A food defense plan can be created by adapting the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) four conditions on food defense plans and creating it according to the unique needs of your business. Follow these four steps to create your own food defense plan:
Form a team that will create a food defense plan based on assessments of vulnerable critical control points in food production and handling (related: TACCP). There are also tools available (FDA’s food defense plan builder) that can help build a customized food defense plan.
It is critical to engage the employees and get their buy-in when implementing a food defense plan. Conduct employee training and meet with stakeholders to implement processes that proactively promote the safety of food products.
Perform internal audits to catch gaps or non-conformance with the implementation of a food defense plan. Analyze food safety inspections to determine the most common non-conforming items and discover areas for improvement in food defense.
FSIS recommends reviewing the food defense plan at least once a year. Others recommend every three years or sooner if there are changes in operations. Based on audit reports, industry best practices, the latest regulations on food safety, and new hazards, determine if the food defense plan needs to be updated or improve how it is implemented to keep up with new and changing threats to food defense.
To help you get started with a proactive approach to food defense, presented below is a snapshot of a sample food defense plan:
Area |
Vulnerability |
Food Defense Solution |
|
Outside Security |
Potential tampering of incoming shipments |
Careful examination of incoming raw materials (e.g. incoming inspection) |
|
Inside Security |
Suspicious packages and unexpected inventory changes |
Establish SOP for reporting to appropriate personnel |
|
Personnel Security |
Lack of awareness to security measures |
Periodic food defense training |
|
Incident Response Security |
Product spoilage due to equipment failure |
Upgrade food defense system with preventive alerts (e.g. temperature and humidity sensors by SafetyCulture) |
You can use a food defense plan template like this sample form as a guide.
With the goal of food defense to keep food products safe from threats of intentional contamination, it is important to ensure that its implementation is consistently monitored and documented. As a food defense system, iAuditor by SafetyCulture can help quality managers reinforce the proper implementation of food defense through streamlined and paperless monitoring and reporting.
This food defense checklist was digitized based on the USDA’s checklist for warehouses and distribution centers. This checklist uses yes-no-n/a response set to confirm if the following areas are covered: outside security, general inside security, shipping and receiving, mail handling, and personnel.
This food defense checklist template is created for establishments that serve food products to customers. Evaluate the food defense established for the facility, employees, supplies, food preparation, and cleaning. Easily customize this template using iAuditor’s drag-and-drop template editor to meet business-specific food preparation requirements.
A food defense assessment template can be based on the TACCP risk assessment in order to assess risks at each critical control point of food production. Determine if a hazard is biological, chemical, physical, or radiological and identify the risk rating.
