Penn State Extension Food Safety Plans for Small-Scale Cheesemakers

Purpose

The purpose of the Penn State Extension Food Safety Plans for Small-Scale Cheesemakers is to assist small-scale and raw milk cheesemakers in conducting hazard analyses of their processes to ensure they are producing the safest product possible and to meet the requirements of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). These documents are specifically designed for small-scale cheesemakers with a focus on those making raw milk cheese. The production of raw milk cheese poses additional risk because there is no pathogen kill step applied to the milk, and therefore cheesemakers must manage the risk at various other steps in their process using a combination of hurdles.

Tool Overview

The Penn State Extension Food Safety Plans for Small-Scale Cheesemakers was developed because many food safety documents currently available are aimed at larger processors and do not meet the needs of smaller-scale processors and the unique requirements for raw milk cheesemakers.

The tool includes the following:

• A "Guide for Implementing a Food Safety System in Small-Scale and Raw Milk Cheese Plants" that provides an overview of what is needed and how to approach setting up a food safety system and conducting a hazard analysis
• A "Food Safety Plan for Raw Milk Gouda Cheese Teaching Example" that provides a comprehensive hazard analysis that can be adapted by cheesemakers
• A blank template for building a Food Safety Plan

Download the tools.