Peanut Butter HACCP Plan Example, With a Worksheet

Peanut butter's food safety story is Salmonella. Raw peanuts can carry it, roasting is the step that destroys it, and because peanut butter is a dry, fatty food, Salmonella that gets in after the roaster can survive for months. So a peanut butter HACCP plan has roasting as its first critical control point, and treats everything after the roaster, cooling, blanching, grinding, filling, as the place to keep it from coming back. Metal from a worn grinder and a wrong label between peanut and almond butter are the other two critical points, and aflatoxin from moldy peanuts is handled by the supplier's certificate for each lot. In the example below, a nut butter maker's plan has three critical control points, and a day's log catches a metal detector that missed a test piece. Below is the hazard analysis, the plan, the day, and a free worksheet.

The short version

• Salmonella in raw peanuts is destroyed by roasting: CCP 1, a validated time and temperature.
• After the roaster, keep raw and roasted apart and clean dry; Salmonella survives in dry dust.
• Metal from the grinder: CCP 2, a metal detector tested with ferrous, non-ferrous and stainless pieces.
• Peanut and tree nut labels: CCP 3, checked each lot, with almond butter run first after a full clean.
• Aflatoxin: the supplier's certificate for each lot of peanuts, a supply-chain control.
• Nut butters are on FDA's Food Traceability List, so lot records go further than most.
• TaroStack keeps each batch's readings on its batch record, and the peanut lots it used. More below.

The rules behind it

A registered nut butter maker that isn't exempt needs a written food safety plan with a hazard analysis and preventive controls (21 CFR 117.126). The kinds of control a peanut butter plan uses are all named in the rule: process controls such as roasting temperatures, food allergen controls including labeling, sanitation controls against environmental pathogens, and supply-chain controls for hazards a supplier controls (21 CFR 117.135(c)). For low-moisture foods, food-contact surfaces are kept clean and dry before use, and wet-cleaned ones dried completely (21 CFR 117.35(d)). Buyers and auditors often ask for a HACCP plan by name; what a full food safety plan holds is in what is a food safety plan. This is general information, not legal advice.

An example: the hazard analysis

Red Oak Nut Butters, a made-up nut butter maker in Little Rock, Arkansas, I use in these examples, roasts raw peanuts and makes peanut butter and almond butter in one room:

The step after the roaster is where peanut butter plants have the most to lose: once roasted peanuts meet raw-peanut dust or a wet spot, there's no later step to fix it. That's why the room is laid out so raw peanuts never cross the roasted side, and why the grinder is cleaned dry. How Red Oak makes and prices its jars is in nut butter business plan.

The plan

The roasting numbers are examples: a maker's own limits come from a validation showing its roaster, its peanuts and its batch size reach a lethal treatment. How the label declares peanuts and almonds is in allergen matrix template.

A day of monitoring

At 11:00 the detector let the stainless test piece through. Every jar filled since the 10:00 test, the last good one, was held and run through again after the detector was reset, and the grinder burrs were inspected. Nothing was found, and the record shows why the hour's jars were released. How long to keep the records is in how long should HACCP records be kept.

Get the worksheet

Download the peanut butter HACCP worksheet. Three sheets: the hazard analysis, step by step; the plan, one row for each critical control point with its limit, monitoring, corrective action, verification and record; and a monitoring log, where each reading is checked against its limit and a reading outside it is flagged. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

When the stainless piece is missed at 11:00, the question is which jars were filled since 10:00, which lot they belong to, and whether any have already left. A log sheet records the miss; it can't say where the jars went, or which lot of raw peanuts the roast came from if a supplier calls about Salmonella next month.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps each batch's readings on its batch record, and the peanut lots it used.

Readings on the batch record. Fields of your own on the batch record, numbers, tick boxes and initials, hold the roast temperature and time, the hourly metal detector tests and the label check, and printable batch-record forms carry the same fields for the line. They're the records you keep, not a promise of compliance.

Peanut lots to jar lots. A batch of peanut butter records which lots of raw peanuts, salt and honey it consumed, with each supplier's lot and, in a field of your own on the receipt, its aflatoxin certificate number, and gets a lot of its own.

Holds and recalls. A lot on hold is kept out of what can be sold while jars are re-checked, and each order records the lots each customer got, so one recall report shows where a batch went and what's still on your shelves.

Batches, batch records with fields of your own, holds, lots and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

What are the critical control points for peanut butter?

In the example: roasting, which destroys Salmonella; metal detection, for fragments from the grinder; and labeling, for peanut and tree nut allergens.

How is Salmonella controlled in peanut butter?

By roasting to a validated time and temperature, then keeping roasted peanuts away from raw ones and dust, with dry cleaning and environmental swabs.

How is aflatoxin controlled?

By buying peanuts with a supplier's certificate for each lot showing aflatoxin below the buyer's limit, a supply-chain control.

Are nut butters on the FDA Food Traceability List?

Yes. Nut butters are on the list, so receiving, making and shipping records go further; the exemptions are in food traceability list exemptions. FDA has proposed moving the compliance date to July 20, 2028, and Congress directed it not to enforce the rule before then; FDA says it will comply.