[jorgeoaleman]

Hello, this is my first post and we have not had a BRC Pre-Audit yet. I'm pretty sure that I know the answer to this question but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Are mustaches required to be covered in product Fabrication areas or does anybody know of any exemption/risk analysis that have worked in order to not cover them up? Are mustache/beards required to be covered with snoods/beardnets in Slaughter operations?

[Mendeljev]

Hello there

We require mustach snoods in open product areas. As a result, some have shaved their mustaches ! :)

On the other hand we now have an intern discussion about working with not protected arms.
As you may know, it's common for butchers with sleeved up overalls (don't know why this is, but i havent seen otherwise)
The problem is that some people have a lot of hair on their arms, so the risk of contaminating the product is high.
We have discussed diffirent ways of approaching this
- Working with sleeves down => the sleeves will become very dirty after one hour so not hygienic => idea discarted
- Working wirh plastic sleeves => Not very practical solution, also they can get damaged so that there is plastic contamination possible
- .....
don't know what your solution is to this problem, but keen to hear it :)

[Marshenko]

Mendeljev, on 04 May 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

Hello there

We require mustach snoods in open product areas. As a result, some have shaved their mustaches ! :)

On the other hand we now have an intern discussion about working with not protected arms.
As you may know, it's common for butchers with sleeved up overalls (don't know why this is, but i havent seen otherwise)
The problem is that some people have a lot of hair on their arms, so the risk of contaminating the product is high.
We have discussed diffirent ways of approaching this
- Working with sleeves down => the sleeves will become very dirty after one hour so not hygienic => idea discarted
- Working wirh plastic sleeves => Not very practical solution, also they can get damaged so that there is plastic contamination possible
- .....
don't know what your solution is to this problem, but keen to hear it :)

Disposable plastic sleeves seem to be the best idea, really. I'm sure you already have some methodology in place to handle a situation in where disposable gloves are ripped, thus causing some potential contamination (i.e. color-coded gloves, etc.) ... use the same with the sleeves. Contains the hair, keeps the cloth sleeves clean when they are down, and keeps the potential from contamination from bare arms at a minimum:

[GMO]

Back to the initial question, I would have one rule for all. I mean you could have a very small neat moustache which is very unlikely to cause an issue and then the next day some guy with a show stopping upper lip warmer comes in to work...

[jorgeoaleman]

This, disposable plastic sleeves, is what we also have come to use in order to aid in the issue of a soiled or rolled up smock sleeve.

Jorge

Marshenko, on 04 May 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

Disposable plastic sleeves seem to be the best idea, really. I'm sure you already have some methodology in place to handle a situation in where disposable gloves are ripped, thus causing some potential contamination (i.e. color-coded gloves, etc.) ... use the same with the sleeves. Contains the hair, keeps the cloth sleeves clean when they are down, and keeps the potential from contamination from bare arms at a minimum:

[Martinblue]

We had same problem in our bakery- arm hair contamination....
we have policy now to scrub arms during hand washing at the start of shift. it helps to remove loose hair and minimize the arm hair contamination. ..it's working.

regard

martinblue