Preventive controls
Although the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) came into force on January 15, 2019, certain requirements are being phased in over the following 12 to 30 months. For more information, refer to the SFCR timelines.
The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) require that food businesses have preventive controls in place. Whether you import food into Canada or make food for export or to be sold interprovincially, you are required to understand and control potential food safety hazards.
The basics
- Fact sheet: Preventive food safety controls
- Video: Creating a Preventive Control Plan (PCP) under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations
- Infographic: Key preventive controls
- Infographic: Categories of hazards
- Questions and answers: Preventive controls and preventive control plans
Know the requirements
Application of preventive control requirements to food businesses
Find out if and when you need to comply with the preventive control requirements.
Regulatory requirements: Preventive controls
An explanation of the requirements found in Part 4 – Preventive controls of the SFCR. Get a better understanding of the requirements to help you determine if you meet them.
Preventive control plan
Find out if and when you need to have a written preventive control plan and learn how you can build and implement one.
Additional guidance
Recommended preventive controls – for establishments
- Cleaning and sanitation program
- Condensation
- Control measures for Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods
- Culinary steam
- Ice used in the preparation of food
- Incoming ingredients, materials and non-food chemicals
- Lighting in an establishment
- Pest control
- Preventing cross-contamination
- Preventing water backflow
- Preventive controls for food allergens, gluten and added sulphites
- Sampling procedures
- Supplier food safety assurance program
- Water for use in the preparation of food
Recommended preventive controls – for food
General
- Conducting a hazard analysis
- Control measures for Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods
- Evidence showing a control measure is effective
- Guidance for food establishments concerning construction materials and packaging materials and non-food chemicals
- Guidance on food products treated with high-pressure processing (HPP)
- Incoming ingredients, materials and non-food chemicals
- Preventive controls for food allergens, gluten and sulphites
- Recall procedure: A guide for food businesses
- Sampling procedures
- Shelf-life studies
- Supplier food safety assurance program
Thermal processing of food
- Flexible retort pouch defects – Identification and classification
- Guidance on resistance temperature detectors used as indicating thermometers for retort vessels
- Heat penetration studies
- Metal can defects – Identification and classification
- Temperature distribution test for steam-still retorts
- Visual examination of commercially sterile low-acid and acidified low-acid foods packed in hermetically sealed containers
Food-specific preventive controls
- Dairy products
- Egg and processed egg products
- Fish
- Fresh fruits or vegetables
- Honey
- Maple
- Meat products
- Processed fruit or vegetable products
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