Principle 4: Sanitary Design of Equipment and Facilities
Sanitary design of equipment and facilities is one of the most important principles from a strategic perspective. If we encourage processors to work with original equipment suppliers, we could change the future of sanitation and food safety in the industry. If possible and time permitting, I would recommend that all quality and food safety professionals and engineers who design equipment and facilities spend time during the sanitation process observing the challenges that sanitarians and sanitors face cleaning equipment that is not optimally designed for cleaning. This is an eye-opening experience, especially if you not only observe it but also try to clean it yourself. It also gives one the opportunity to understand the challenges that sanitors experience every day when a line goes down to be cleaned. That’s the best way to understand sanitary design and the benefits of an optimized design.
There are many sanitary design standards available today, some better than others, but in most cases, if you follow one standard and use it with the full understanding of sanitation and food safety risks after talking with the maintenance, engineering, sanitation, quality, food safety and production teams, you will be in a good position to have discussions with your equipment suppliers. Excellent partnerships and communication between processors and equipment suppliers can be the defining factor in the best designs.
Principle 5: Effective Sanitation Procedures and Controls
This is a critical area to focus on as you look at the total equation. All of the principles work together and establish a balance for the other principles, which may otherwise fall short of expectations. As an example, if you have a weakness in sanitary design (all facilities and equipment do), you need to compensate for substandard designs with enhanced cleaning procedures to ensure you clean hard-to-reach areas. This may need to be done daily or periodically—nonetheless, this offers a balance to deliver microbial control of pathogens and spoilage organisms. Likewise with separation concerns, if you have an issue with the separation of raw from RTE or high-hygiene areas, you may need to enhance the hurdle requirements at entry points and increase the frequency of deep cleaning or sanitizing of the floors to eliminate any contamination that may enter a room from poor separation of areas until you are able to provide complete separation.
The fundamental approach we use for sanitation procedures and controls is the “Seven Steps of Sanitation” for wet cleaning and a similar approach with different science for dry cleaning. These are both well-disciplined and thorough procedures that prevent potential cross-contamination from nonproduct zones to product contact zones. Without a disciplined approach, there would be much more cross-contamination in the industry.