Microbiological Analysis

Could anybody please help answer my question as to whether you actually have to carry out microbiological swabbing on each product produced, is this an actual requirement for BRC? or is this only required to be a consideration under HACCP?. I have been asked by a consultant working on behalf of one of our customers, that is working towards an EFSIS audit, if we could provide him with Microbiological certification, i can produce certification for one product we supply him as our supplier carries out microbiological testing, but i am unable to provide certification from our other supplier, would any body have any suggestions how i could get round this one?

Please help!

Shelly initially sent me the question via email, I provided a limited answer (see below) but I aksed Shelly to post it on the forums as she may get an authoratitive answer from one of the many experts here.

In my opinion if you simply sell on what your supplier supplies to you then you should really try and get them to do the testing.  If you do further processing on the supplied product then what you do could have a microbiological effect and you may have to do the testing yourselves.

With regard to the range of testing I would test the product as it is the important thing and ultimately is the output of your process (environment, equipment, methods, people etc.).  If you were finding problems with the end product then you would need to try and identify the root cause by testing other stuff in your process.  I know a packaging company who do regular micro testing; they used to test all sorts including raw material, machines, equipment, peoples hands and product.  A while back they moved to testing much more product and less of all the other stuff.

Regards,
Simon

Shelly initially sent me the question via email, I provided a limited answer (see below) but I aksed Shelly to post it on the forums as she may get an authoratitive answer from one of the many experts here.
Regards,
Simon

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Hi Shelly

I think if you are going to do for each product a microbiological testing it will cost a fortune. Your testing can fail if you do not concentrate more on your haccp.
My opinion and I am not an expert your haccp is more important than a microbiological certification which is an additional requirement for BRC.
Do you agree?

Hello,

I believe HACCP is not about end product testing but routine tests do prove that your HACCP Plan is working as intended.

Nevertheless, I agree with Bibi that it will cost you a fortune to micro test all your products. However, if the products are produced from the same process parameter, the test would represent the process critical parameters to be in order and the products safe.

Microbiological testing is a critical GMP of any food safety system and circumstances may need you to consider a Micro Sampling Plan as well. Fear not but do as deem appropriate and necessary.

Regards
Charles Chew

I believe HACCP is not about end product testing but routine tests do prove that your HACCP Plan is working as intended.

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That´s what it is. If you worked out a functional HACCP-plan, the microbiology is the validation or verification part, routine monitoring via microbiology mostly is critical! So in my opinion you should ask your supplier about their HACCP plans and decide whether they did their job or not. If you think it would be too critical to resell their goods without testing everything, I think you should change the supplier.

Witch