Get your HACCP certification online

What you get with this online HACCP course

With this online HACCP course you work through everything you need to know about safe food handling in 14 lessons, from personal hygiene to the critical temperatures from the hygiene code. You finish with a final exam of 70 questions. If you pass, you get the certificate that belongs to the course: proof that you worked through the material and passed the exam.

The course is made for people working with food and drinks in a kitchen, behind the bar, in catering or in a food truck, and for entrepreneurs who want to demonstrably train their staff. You pay a one-off € 49,95 and keep access without an end date, so you can always return later to look something up.

What the law requires regarding HACCP in your business

The law does not require a diploma, but it does require you to demonstrably work safely with food. According to Regulation (EC) 852/2004, every food business operator must work with fixed procedures based on the HACCP principles. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

In the hospitality industry you can meet this in two ways. You work according to the latest Hygiënecode voor de Horeca from KHN, a government-approved code that details the HACCP rules for hospitality, or you draw up a food safety plan yourself according to the seven basic principles. You do not have to buy the codebook. Working according to the code is mandatory.

The NVWA checks this with unannounced inspections and looks at your registration lists, such as fridge temperatures and the times when appliances were cleaned. If you do not comply with the rules, you receive a written warning or a fine. An inspector can also question employees about their knowledge.

The entrepreneur is obliged to instruct and train their staff in food hygiene, suited to the work they do. A course fits well with this. The certificate shows that someone has worked through the material, and you record that in your administration.

How the HACCP exam of the course is structured

The HACCP Exam concludes the course with 70 multiple-choice questions, each with 3 answers, spread across all 41 learning objectives of the 14 lessons. You pass with 70% correct. There is no time limit, so you can read each question quietly and review your answer.

Before you start that, you test yourself at the end of each lesson with a few questions about the entire lesson. You read the explanation immediately with every question, even if you got it right. This way you see per lesson if you master the material before moving on. That is worthwhile: a mistake about core temperature or cooling time costs more than a point in a real kitchen.

The questions in the final exam are different from the testing questions, so in the exam you truly show what you know again. Your certificate depends solely on this final exam.

Which questions in the HACCP training are difficult

You mainly lose points on questions where you have to apply a rule, or where two answers both sound reasonable. Isolated facts are rarely the problem.

Take temperatures. Most people know that chilled storage is a maximum of 7 °C. Cooling down has two limits though: to 20 °C within 2 hours and to 7 °C within 5 hours. Anyone who only remembers those 5 hours will choose the wrong answer for a question about a large pot of soup. That rule exists for a reason. The toxins from the Bacillus cereus bacterium develop exactly when a product like nasi or bami cools down too slowly, and they remain harmful if you reheat it afterwards.

In the practice exams from ToetsJeKennis.nl you get exactly these types of questions, based on the learning objectives and the Hygiënecode voor de Horeca. After grading you read why one answer is correct and the other is just off for every question. A few distinctions candidates often stumble over:

• CCP, AKP or AP. A critical control point is measurable, you control another critical point with instructions and a point of attention is facilitating. The question is then which group a process step belongs to.
• Food infection or food poisoning. With an infection you get sick from living pathogens, with poisoning from the toxins that microorganisms have produced.
• THT or TGT. After the use-by date a product is considered unsafe. Past the best-before date you may only use unchilled products and sour dairy or hard cheese after your own check, according to the hygiene code.
• Infection or contamination. Infection means too many pathogenic microorganisms, contamination is something in the food that does not belong there, like glass or a hair.

Why a HACCP education with explanations works better than just reading

Practising with direct explanations works faster than just reading, because you immediately notice what you thought you knew but cannot apply yet. You read a text about cross-contamination in a few minutes. Only with a question about raw and prepared in the same fridge do you see if it really stuck.

That is why you test yourself after each lesson: you go through the material quietly and read the explanation for every question after grading. You take the final exam in exam mode, like a real exam. You get your certificate as soon as you pass the final exam.

The error analysis shows where you lose points per topic after each test. If things go wrong with cleaning, for example with the difference between cleaning and disinfecting, you get extra practice training on exactly that topic. If something remains unclear, ask the AI teacher. Why do you have to rinse with clean water after cleaning? The answer is based on the laws and official sources regarding food safety, such as the Warenwet and Regulation (EC) 852/2004.

The questions are checked and updated to current legislation, so you do not learn rules that have already been replaced. Start with the first lesson: after testing yourself a few times you already know which topics need extra attention.

How to start the HACCP course

You start immediately after signing up, on your laptop, tablet or phone. If you want to see what the questions look like first, you can do 10 questions with the free HACCP test; the lessons, the final exam and the certificate are in the full course.

1. 1Signing up and logging inAfter your order the course is ready for you immediately. You work online, on any device you have at hand.
2. 2Starting at the introductionThe Introduction to HACCP explains the basic concepts and who holds ultimate responsibility. The lessons follow after that, from demonstrably safe food handling to the hospitality hygiene code from 2016.
3. 3Testing after each lessonOnce you have read all topics of a lesson, you answer a few questions about the entire lesson and read the explanation. If you got one wrong, read that part of the lesson again.
4. 4Eliminating weak spotsCheck your dashboard to see which topics are still shaky and practise them with the extra practice training from the error analysis.
5. 5Final exam and certificateIf you get 70% correct on the final exam, you have completed the course and you receive your certificate.

Tips for getting your HACCP certificate

The best preparation is linking the material to your own workplace. With every rule you can ask yourself where it appears in your kitchen: at which fridge, on which registration list, at which workbench. A number then suddenly becomes an action you do every shift.

A few habits make the difference between doubting and answering confidently.

• Plan short sessions. You easily do a lesson with testing in one go, and material you spread over a few days sticks better than everything in one evening.
• Read every question to the end. Words like minimum, maximum or within often determine which answer is correct.
• Only start the final exam when you have read all lessons and the testing goes well without a doubt. If you doubt a topic, practise it again first.
• Use the AI teacher for the why question. You forget a rule you understand less quickly than a number you learn by heart.

Keeping your HACCP knowledge up to date after the exam

With your certificate you have completed the course, but you use the material again every shift. An NVWA inspector can question employees about their knowledge, and someone who truly knows the rules will answer calmly.

Because you have access without an end date, you can go through a lesson again later, for example when a new colleague starts and you want to review the rules for defrosting or cooling down together.