Ohio State University Extension Bulletin

Ensuring Safe Food — A HACCP-Based Plan for Ensuring Food Safety in Retail Establishments

Bulletin 901

Appendix 5 — HACCP: Origins

Concepts for HACCP originated from work done in the 1960s to help establish that food transported into space would not cause astronauts food-borne illness. The first work on HACCP was done at the Pillsbury Company, in collaboration with NASA and the U.S. Army Natick Laboratories and the U.S. Air Force Space Laboratory Project Group.

  • 1971
    HACCP, as we presently know it, took form at the National Conference on Food Protection, where risk assessment was combined with the critical point concept.
  • Mid 1970s
    Pillsbury first used HACCP for safety of foods in the U.S. Space Program and adopted it as a company-wide food-protection system. Pillsbury published the first comprehensive treatise on HACCP in 1973.
  • 1973
    A HACCP system was adopted for the Low-Acid Canned Food Regulations following the Bon Vivant Vichyssoise Soup botulism incident. [In this incident, several people died, after eating the soup, due to botulism poisoning.]
  • 1985
    HACCP was recommended by the National Academy of Science for broad application to various categories of non-canned food.
  • 1989
    The U.S. National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food (NACMCF) developed and approved a standardized and updated HACCP system, endorsed by federal regulatory agencies responsible for food safety.
  • 1990s
    HACCP is an internationally accepted method of ensuring food safety by identifying hazards and monitoring their Critical Control Points in the process.
  • 1997 (December)
    FDA's Seafood HAACP program becomes mandatory.
  • 1998 (January)
    HACCP becomes mandatory for large meat and poultry manufacturers.
  • 1999 (January)
    HACCP becomes mandatory for small meat and poultry manufacturers.
  • 1999 (May)
    A voluntary pilot study to test the implementation, evaluation, monitoring, and enforcement of the proposed National Conference of Interstate Milk Shipment HACCP program.
  • 1999 (September)
    HACCP becomes mandatory for frozen dessert manufacturers in the state of Ohio.
  • 2000 (January)
    HACCP becomes mandatory for very small meat and poultry manufacturers.
  • 2002 (January)
    The juice HACCP regulation begins to be mandatory for processors (02), small businesses (03), and very small businesses (04).

Appendix 4 | Appendix 6 | Table of Contents