Evaluate your Listeria Management Practices

The Listeria monocytogenes pathogen can contaminate meat, poultry, and seafood products at various stages throughout the farm-to-fork process. The manufacturing plant has been identified as a high-risk stage as a result of the favorable conditions of the processing environment which encourage bacteria growth. The basic principles of hygiene and sanitation need to be applied consistently to ensure the consistent removal of soils, chemicals, and microorganisms and reduce the risk of contamination.

Our Seven Steps for Effective Sanitation in a wet clean environment provides a best practice framework for food and beverage manufacturing cleaning personnel to follow.

Seven Steps for Effective Sanitation in a Wet Clean Environment

1. Dry Clean/Pick-up: Gross soils removed without the use of water.
2. First Pre-Rinse: 75% - 95% of soils removed.
3. Detergent and Brush: Everyone in the process area starts step 3 at the same time. Equipment is foamed and hand scrubbed to ensure films do not form. Detergents should not be allowed to dry on the surface.
4. Rinse: Low-pressure flood rinse and continuous inspection to remove broken-down soils, films and chemicals. 100% free of soils, hazes, and films.
5. Assemble & Remove Water: Equipment is put back together and standing water must be removed in preparation for the inspection.
6. Pre-operational Inspection: Run equipment prior to completing inspection per the plants SSOP. All deficiencies must be corrected prior to moving to step 7.
7. Sanitize: Remove all standing water prior to sanitizing. Flood sanitize the equipment with no rinse concentrations of sanitizer (follow manufacturer label instructions). Then sanitize the floor and wall with a foam application of quat (800 ? 1000 PPM) and allow to air dry.

Audit your Current Practices

Best practice framework for food and beverage manufacturing cleaning personnel to follow

Regularly reviewing current sanitation processes demonstrates a commitment to maintaining good hygiene standards and aligns with continuous improvement projects. We have designed a free template which will help food and beverage processors to audit their current operations against the Seven Steps method outlined above.

How to use: An appropriate member of staff (sanitation/plant/operations/process improvement manager) observes the cleaning and sanitation processes in real time and uses the Seven Steps template to identify gaps in current practices. A Plant Action Register is created which documents validated procedures and highlights the areas of improvement and the actions to be taken to achieve a better standard of plant sanitation and reduce the risk of bacterial contamination.

Independent Evaluation

Utilizing the knowledge and experience of industry suppliers will provide an unbiased analysis of current processes and can help to prioritize an action plan based on what they perceive to be the highest risk factors. CIPCheck, OPCCheck and SecureCheck are three such solutions available from the Diversey Knowledge-based Services portfolio which provide a holistic review of current operations.