Barriers hindering maintenance of standardised HACCP-based food safety management systems in small Polish food businesses

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Despite many publications on barriers hindering the implementation of HACCP principles, there are no studies that have comprehensively identified barriers during the maintenance of standardised food safety management systems (FSMSs) based on HACCP principles. This research aimed to determine the structure of barriers during the maintenance of standardised FSMSs based on private standards in a group of small-sized Polish food businesses and (ii) determine the ranking of barriers based on the experience of food safety team leaders (FSTLs) and food safety team members (FSTMs).Barriers identified during interviews with FSTLs were clustered into 17 categories with 144 groups. Apart from barrier categories well known from HACCP implementation stage, this study identified new categories, such as faults in FSMS, burdensome production issues as well as difficulties in cooperation with customers and suppliers of raw materials, external and internal auditors, external consultants and official food control inspectors.Moreover, two rankings of barriers were obtained based on the Suzuki method and a Pareto analysis. The FSTLs' rankings identified five critical barriers concerning employee attributes, faults in FSMS operation, burdensome documented information, financial constraints and burdensome documented information. The five key barrier categories in the FSTMs’ rankings included top management attributes, burdensome documented information, employee attributes, burdensome production issues, and poor infrastructure.The knowledge of the groups and the categories of barriers is essential for FSTLs during the maintenance and continual improvement of the HACCP-based FSMSs. It may be useful as a reference and contribute to the increasing food control inspectors and food business operators’ awareness of potential barriers occurring in FSMSs based on private standards such as ISO 22000, BRC and IFS. Moreover, an analysis of the barriers presented in this study would be helpful in the elimination of some hindrances. It would positively impact the effectiveness of the FSMS and the organisational food safety culture, contributing to broader improvements in public health through food safety management and official food controls.