Monitoring
A CCP without monitoring is a speed limit without a speedometer — the rule exists, but nobody knows whether it’s being followed. Monitoring is the continuous reality check that keeps critical control points honest.
Definition
Monitoring is the planned sequence of observations or measurements that verifies a CCP is under control — the real-time surveillance that catches deviations while there’s still time to act.
Key facts
- Codex Principle 4 demands specifics: what gets measured, how, how often, and by whom. “Someone checks the temperature sometimes” fails all four.
- Frequency is a design decision with consequences: continuous recording catches everything; hourly checks leave an hour’s production exposed; per-shift checks leave a shift exposed. The exposure window is whatever you didn’t monitor.
- The person monitoring needs authority to act. A monitor who spots a deviation and can’t stop the line is a witness, not a control.
- Monitoring records are legal documents: real-time, accurate, signed, reviewed. Falsified monitoring records aren’t a paperwork issue — they’re a criminal one in some jurisdictions.
- Don’t confuse it with verification: monitoring asks “are we in control right now?”; verification asks “does the system work overall?” — calibration, record review, testing.
Why it matters
Monitoring done beautifully — continuous charts, trained operators, deviations caught in minutes — stands against the alternative: a clipboard filled in at the end of the shift from memory. The second version is surprisingly common and completely worthless. Honest monitoring is uncomfortable because it finds problems; that’s precisely its value. A plant that monitors well catches failures in minutes and holds product before it ships. A plant that doesn’t discovers them in customer complaints. The choice is made every shift.
Sources: Codex Alimentarius; FDA; WHO.
Quick reference
| Question | Example answer |
| What | Core temperature |
| How | Calibrated probe / continuous chart |
| When | Every batch / continuously |
| Who | Trained operator with stop authority |
| Record | Real-time log, reviewed daily |