HACCP Principle #3: Establish Critical Limits
Channel: Clinton Stevenson
Date: 2013-12-30

This is a case study of the famous canned tuna botulism outbreak that occurred in Detroit in the 1960s. It is a lesson on how the Washington Packing Corporation should have used their food safety management system to prevent the occurrence of food borne illness and a massive food recall, which particular emphasis on HACCP Principle #3: Establish Critical Limits. This horrific story involved the deaths of two women, the significant decline of the tuna industry, and the eventual closure of the Washington Packing Corporation and demolishment of its historic processing plant in San Francisco. After studying this lesson, you should be able to establish critical limits for basic critical control points, explain the difference between critical limits and operating limits, and distinguish desirable characteristics of critical limits