While there are several generic beef HACCP documents: available to the beef industry, these lack sufficient detail to be of any use other than as a general guide to HACCP. A document which clearly identities and provides a sound scientific basis For potential critical control points (CCPs') and details critical limits, monitoring and corrective actions is clearly required. The objective of this paper is to provide such information. A detailed description of CCPs' for two different HACCP systems (an intervention and a non-intervention system) are presented and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed. Individual beer plants may then make an informed choice as to which HACCP system is most suitable fur them and have all the specific information required for effective implementation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.