FOOD SAFETY INFORMATION Decontamination of food industry cleaning brushware – a matter of hygienic design DEBRA SMITH - GLOBAL HYGIENE SPECIALIST VIKAN A/S, RÆVEVEJ 1, 7800 SKIVE, DENMARK INTRODUCTION The importance of using hygienically designed cleaning equipment has been recognised for some time now by two of the largest Global Food Safely Initiative (GFSI) benchmarked schemes, i.e., BRCGS and FSSC 22000. BRGCS: Sections 4.11.6 & 8.5.3 ‘Cleaning equipment (including that used for cleaning in high-care and high-risk areas) shall be:- hygienically designed & fit for purpose,.’ [1] FSSC 22000: ISO/TS 22002-1:2009, Part 1. Section 11.2 Cleaning and sanitizing agents and tools - ‘Tools & equipment shall be of hygienic design .’ [2] But what determines whether a piece of cleaning equipment is of good hygienic design? and what impact do these requirement have on the food industry? Thanks to organisations such as the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) and 3A in the US, many food manufacturers already appreciate the benefits of using hygienically designed production equipment. Equipment and components designed with hygiene in mind are quicker and easier to clean, which minimises the risk of microbiolgical, chemical and physical contamination, as well as pest infestation. This in turn maximises food safety and quality, reduces the risk of expensive product rejection or recall, and minimises food waste. However, when it comes to the equipment used to clean the food production environment and production equipment, the need for good hygienic design of the cleaning tools is often not considered appropriately. Typically, cleaning equipment is used over large surface areas and therefore is capable of collecting (and subsequently spreading) contamination. There may be an expectation that any contamination collected by the cleaning equipment is subsequently removed as part of the cleaning process. However, unpublished data, generated by a UK Government funded study which collected 10,000 Listeria swab samples from high care and high risk food factories, and analysed by Campden BRI (CBRI), showed that 47% of the cleaning equipment sampled, were positive for this organism (personal comment Holah, 2015). This data was later used by CBRI to establish guidance on ‘Effective microbiological sampling of food processing areas’ [3] , and gave rise to the concept of cleaning equipment as a major ‘collection’ point for the isolation of pathogens. Whether this observation was due to poor hygienic practices or to the poor hygienic design of the cleaning equipment (or both) is unknown. However, Copyright © Vikan A/S - Department of Research & Development First published, 2015. Revised, 2023 01
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