What Is a Prerequisite Programme (PRP) in Food Safety?

Before HACCP comes the foundation

If you've started looking into food safety for your business, you've probably come across the term HACCP — the system food businesses use to identify and control food safety hazards. But here's something that surprises many first-time food producers: HACCP doesn't work on its own. Before you can build a proper HACCP plan, you need something underneath it. That "something" is called a prerequisite programme, or PRP.

Think of it this way. If HACCP is the roof of a house, PRPs are the walls and foundation. Without them, the roof has nothing to sit on.

This guide explains exactly what PRPs are, what they cover, why they matter — especially if you're a cottage industry producer or small food business in South Africa — and how to start putting them in place.

What is a prerequisite programme (PRP)?

A prerequisite programme is a basic food safety practice or condition that your business puts in place before you deal with specific hazards in your product. The word "prerequisite" simply means something that must exist first.

PRPs are the everyday hygiene and operational standards that keep your production environment clean, safe, and suitable for making food. They don't target one specific danger in your recipe — they control the general environment around your entire operation.

Here's a simple example. Let's say you bake rusks from your home kitchen. A PRP would be making sure your kitchen surfaces are properly cleaned and sanitised before you start baking — every single time. That's not specific to rusks. It applies to everything you produce. It's a baseline standard, not a product-specific control.

In formal food safety language (for example, in the South African standard SANS 10330, which is the national HACCP standard), PRPs are described as the basic environmental and operational conditions that are necessary for the production of safe food. If you want to understand how SANS 10330 fits into the bigger picture, see our guide on what SANS 10330 is and how it applies to your food business.

Why do PRPs matter for small food businesses?

Many small food producers make the mistake of jumping straight into writing a HACCP plan without first sorting out their PRPs. This creates a problem: if your basic hygiene and operational conditions aren't under control, your HACCP plan is built on shaky ground.

Here's why that matters in practical terms:

• Auditors and retailers look for both. If you're hoping to supply a retailer or pass a food safety audit, the people assessing you will check that your PRPs are in place before they even look at your HACCP plan. Missing PRPs is a common reason small businesses fail supplier audits.
• PRPs prevent most everyday contamination risks. A lot of food safety problems — cross-contamination, pest activity, dirty equipment — are caught and prevented at the PRP level, long before they become a crisis.
• They make HACCP simpler. When your environment is already well-controlled, your HACCP plan only needs to focus on hazards specific to your product. That's a much smaller, more manageable task.

In short: PRPs reduce risk, build trust with buyers, and make the rest of your food safety system easier to manage.

What do PRPs actually cover?

PRPs cover all the basic conditions that keep your food production environment safe and hygienic. Below are the most common categories. Don't be put off by the technical names — each one has been explained in plain language.

1. Premises and layout

Your production space should be designed so that clean and dirty activities don't cross paths. For example, raw ingredients shouldn't travel through the same area as finished, packaged products. Even in a home kitchen, you can apply this principle by working in a logical sequence — prep first, packaging last — and keeping those activities physically separated as much as possible.

2. Cleaning and sanitation

Sanitation means reducing harmful microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi) on surfaces to a safe level. Your PRP for cleaning and sanitation should describe what gets cleaned, how it gets cleaned, what products are used, and how often. A written cleaning schedule that staff or family members actually follow is a good starting point.

3. Pest control

Pests — rodents, flies, cockroaches, stored-product insects — are a direct food safety risk. Your PRP should describe how you prevent pests from entering your production area and what you do if you spot signs of pest activity. Many small businesses use a contracted pest control service and keep the service records as proof.

4. Personal hygiene

Everyone who handles food — including you — is a potential source of contamination. Personal hygiene PRPs cover handwashing procedures, protective clothing (like aprons, hair nets, and gloves where relevant), rules about eating and drinking near food, and what to do if someone is ill.

5. Supplier and raw material control

The safety of your finished product depends partly on the ingredients and packaging you bring in. A PRP for supplier control means you have a basic system for checking that what you buy is safe and fit for use — for example, checking that ingredients arrive in good condition, within their use-by date, and from a supplier you trust.

6. Temperature control

Many food safety hazards are temperature-dependent. Bacteria multiply fastest between 5°C and 60°C — a range known as the temperature danger zone. Your PRP should describe how you store ingredients and finished products at the right temperatures, and how you check and record those temperatures.

7. Waste management

Food waste and packaging waste can attract pests and create contamination risks. Your PRP should describe how waste is collected, stored, and removed from your production area.

8. Water quality

Water that comes into contact with your food or food-contact surfaces must be safe to use. In South Africa, municipal water is generally treated and safe, but if you use borehole water or water from any other source, you need to test it and document the results.

9. Equipment and maintenance

Equipment that is poorly maintained can become a contamination source — for example, a cracked chopping board can harbour bacteria, or flaking paint from a mixer can fall into your product. A PRP for equipment maintenance means you have a process for inspecting and maintaining your tools and machinery regularly.

10. Traceability and recall

Traceability means being able to trace a product back through every step of its production — from the raw ingredients used, right through to where the finished product was sold. A basic traceability PRP means you keep enough records to identify and recall (pull back from sale) a product if something goes wrong. Even a simple batch numbering system counts.

PRPs vs HACCP: what's the difference?

This is one of the most common points of confusion for new food business owners, so let's clear it up directly.

PRPs control the general environment around your food production. They apply to everything you make, all the time.

HACCP controls specific hazards in a specific product or process. It's targeted and product-specific.

Here's an analogy. Imagine you're running a small biltong business. Your personal hygiene policy (everyone washes their hands before handling meat) is a PRP — it applies no matter what you're making. But controlling the drying temperature to prevent bacterial growth specifically in your biltong? That's a HACCP control, because it's specific to that product and its unique hazard profile.

The two systems are designed to work together. PRPs handle the background conditions; HACCP handles the product-specific risks. You need both.

If you're ready to move on to building the HACCP side of your system, see our guide on how to write a HACCP plan for a small food business in South Africa (slug: haccp-plan-small-business-south-africa).

How do you document your PRPs?

Documentation means writing things down and keeping records. In food safety, if it isn't documented, it didn't happen — at least as far as an auditor or retailer is concerned.

For each PRP area, you typically need two things:

1. A procedure or policy — a written description of what you do and how you do it. For example, a written cleaning schedule that lists every surface, how often it's cleaned, and which cleaning product is used.
2. Records — proof that you actually did it. For example, a signed daily cleaning log, a pest control service report, or a temperature monitoring sheet.

You don't need fancy software or expensive consultants to do this. Many small South African food businesses start with simple Word or Excel documents, or even printed paper forms. The most important thing is that your records are consistent, honest, and up to date.

Common mistakes South African food producers make with PRPs

Based on what comes up repeatedly in food safety audits for small and cottage industry producers, here are the most common PRP pitfalls — and how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: Writing procedures but not keeping records

You might have a great cleaning schedule on paper, but if nobody is signing off that it was done, there's no proof. Start simple — even a tick and a date on a printed sheet is better than nothing.

Mistake 2: Treating PRPs as a once-off exercise

PRPs are not a document you write once and forget. They're living practices that need to be followed every day and reviewed regularly — at least once a year, or whenever your process changes.

Mistake 3: Skipping PRPs and going straight to HACCP

As explained earlier, HACCP sits on top of your PRPs. If your basics aren't in order, your HACCP plan won't hold up under scrutiny. Sort your PRPs first.

Mistake 4: Not adapting PRPs to your specific situation

Generic templates can be helpful starting points, but your PRPs need to reflect your business, your premises, and your processes. A home-based biscuit baker has different PRP requirements to a shared commercial kitchen user. Make sure yours are relevant and realistic.

A quick-start checklist for PRPs

If you're not sure where to begin, use this checklist to see which PRP areas you already have covered and which need attention.

• ☐ Do you have a written cleaning and sanitation schedule for your production area?
• ☐ Do you keep records proving that cleaning was done?
• ☐ Do you have a pest control programme in place (even a basic one)?
• ☐ Do you have a personal hygiene policy that everyone in your production space follows?
• ☐ Do you check and record temperatures for cold storage and/or hot processes?
• ☐ Do you inspect incoming raw materials and packaging before use?
• ☐ Do you have a basic system for tracing batches of finished product back to the ingredients used?
• ☐ Do you have a procedure for managing waste in your production area?
• ☐ Do you inspect and maintain your equipment regularly?
• ☐ Is the water you use in production safe and, if necessary, tested?

If you answered "no" or "not sure" to several of these, that's completely normal for a business just starting out. The important thing is that you now know what needs to be put in place.

The bottom line

Prerequisite programmes are the non-negotiable foundation of any food safety system. They're not bureaucratic box-ticking — they're the everyday practices that protect your customers, protect your business, and give retailers and auditors the confidence they need to work with you.

You don't need to build everything overnight. Start with the areas that present the highest risk in your specific production environment, document what you're doing, and build from there. A well-run small food business with solid PRPs is far better positioned than a larger business with impressive paperwork and nothing behind it.