3 replies to this topic

[JD@KetoSkream]

Hey all,

 

I'm needing to run a mock emergency drill and was hoping to farm your brains for suggestions on what to do (FSSC 22000 5.7 and I think SQF 2.1.6, BRC 3.11?). My predecessor had run a mock fire scenario where a scissor lift battery caught on fire. They evacuated like it was a real fire and then reentered to assess. The drill was pretty well "Look for any possible contaminated product in warehouse or production area from smoke/fire/water, quarantine and maybe dispose of." Last year I tried a bodily fluid (vomit) one, and the scenario was again very simple as it was contained to a very small area, so again it was pretty well "Assess what product was contaminated, quarantine and destroy. Clean affected areas well following blood/bodily fluid cleaning procedure."

 

The upsides to both scenarios so far is that the staff all responded very well, were able to come up with the correct solutions to any questions with very little prompting, so I do consider that to be very positive outcomes of the situations so far. However, I have been trying to think of a situation that could possibly be more complicated or something you'd have to think a bit more deeply over, while still being realistic. The other issue I face is that we are just a dry spice blender. We do not do any processing here, just blending/mixing and repacking, so generally our products are either good or they aren't; contamination basically means quarantine, assessment of extent then disposal of affected product. Am I overthinking it, and is just running a simple scenario and making sure people know what to do, where to go, who to tell is good enough? 

 

The other part is that FSSC seems quite simplistic in comparison to what I've seen on here from SQF. 5.7 reads "Top management shall establish, implement and maintain procedures to manage potential emergency situations and accidents that can impact food safety and which are relevant to the role of the organization in the food chain" and that's it. It only concerns itself with food safety and doesn't reference business continuity as SQF 2.1.6 does, so having a plan that extends past what to do with the food and into what to do with the business after having to throw out a warehouse-worth of product contaminated by smoke or water damage seems to be beyond the scope. So maybe I am overthinking the heck out of this?

 

 

[FurFarmandFork]

Sudden roof leaks over product contact surfaces (or that were discovered after the line was down) are great examples of changing scope and scrambling to figure out how you can move the line to a safe area to resume production.

 

Others would be a "boil notice" given by your water provider for microbial contamination, how would that affect your product and processes?

[peeviewonder]

What about an emergency plan for what you would do with a nuclear catastrophe? This is something that we had to think about when doing our HACCP/HARPC review and supplier preventive controls. 

[JD@KetoSkream]

I guess given current events, I can understand why companies in the USA would need to introduce potential nuclear catastrophe into their emergency plans... Duck and cover? But I suppose it would be something worth considering, given the state of the world these days.

 

I like the idea of a roof leak... To leak into our production areas you would need literally two roofs (rooves?) to leak (the exterior one and the roof built on the shorter/smaller production rooms) but a leak in the warehouse is actually a great idea. We had issues like that at my previous place of work, leaks in our cooler. The problem was temporarily fixed (about 2.5-3 years ago) using these really neat tarps you can buy that hang from the roof and drop in the middle where it pools down to a long plastic tube to run into a drain below, but it took a bit. Luckily it didn't affect our product due to how they are wrapped/stored, but at my current place it 100% would affect any product or packaging out there.