About this course
This course gives quality assurance teams a working map of the hygiene and monitoring programs that keep a food manufacturing facility running clean, compliant, and ready for inspection at any time. Rather than treating ATP verification, allergen swabbing, and environmental monitoring as separate checklists, learners see how these programs fit together as one integrated system that protects product and satisfies auditors.
The regulatory driver is straightforward: FDA's Preventive Controls for Human Food rule (21 CFR Part 117) requires documented monitoring, verification, and corrective action procedures for the hazards a facility identifies in its food safety plan. On top of that baseline, most retail, foodservice, and brand-owner customers require certification against a GFSI-benchmarked scheme such as SQF, BRCGS, or FSSC 22000 — and auditors for these schemes spend the bulk of an audit reviewing exactly the programs covered in this course.
This course is built for QA technicians, QA supervisors, and plant managers who own day-to-day monitoring tasks or who are preparing a site for an upcoming internal or third-party audit. No prior audit experience is assumed.
After completing this course, learners will be able to explain why each monitoring program exists, describe how the programs connect to form a defensible food safety system, identify the documentation auditors typically request, and recognize common gaps before an auditor does.
Topics covered
- How hygiene monitoring (ATP, allergen swabs, microbial testing) fits into a food safety plan
- Environmental monitoring basics and why it matters for ready-to-eat facilities
- Documentation and recordkeeping auditors expect to see
- Common audit findings in QA monitoring programs and how to close them
- Connecting daily QA tasks to GFSI and FDA compliance requirements
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