Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures is the common name, in the United States, given to the sanitation procedures in food production plants which are required by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA and regulated by 9 CFR part 416 in conjunction with 21 CFR part 178.1010.
SSOPs are generally documented steps that must be followed to ensure adequate cleaning of product contact and non-product surfaces.
All HACCP plans require SSOPs to be documented and reviewed periodically to incorporate changes to the physical plant.
SSOPs, in conjunction with the Master Sanitation Schedule and Pre-Operational Inspection Program, form the entire sanitation operational guidelines for food-related processing and one of the primary backbones of all food industry HACCP plans.
[citation needed] SSOPs can be very simple to extremely intricate depending on the focus.