16 replies to this topic

[Anne Z]

Hello,

When to wear a beard snood?

Some employees do not shave for a few days and will get a small beard. Hairnets are obligatorily as they come in contact with the open product (filling drums with refinned vegetable oils).

Can someone help me out.
Thank you!

Anne

PS I just saw a whole fabooksite dedicated to beard snoods http://www.facebook....id=129692395765

[GMO]

I've always had the following rules:

You must wear a beardsnood if:

• You have a beard
• You have a moustache
• You have more than 1 day's growth of stubble

The beardsnood must cover all of any beard and moustache.

Generally apart from a bit of complaining it doesn't get too badly abused. I'm sure that the odd person sneaked in with more than a day's growth if their beard didn't grow quickly but tbh, it's easier having a rule like that than saying "if the stubble is longer than x mm" do you really want to be standing at the entrance with a ruler?

[Anne Z]

Hi GMO,

Thank you! Indeed I don't want to be standing near the filling line with a ruler.
It is an easy to understand rule the way you wrote it down.

[Dr Ajay Shah]

Hi Anne Z,

You will need to tighten up on your personal hygiene policy and deand that people are either clean shaven or if they have a growth of 1.5 mm to 2mm then they will be required to wear a beard net.


I hope this helps.

Ajay

[Lane]

That is a good question. I've thought about it myself.
Are there any regulations that talk about this?

Dr. Ajay Shah, where did you come up with your standard "if they have a growth of 1.5 mm to 2mm then they will be required to wear a beard net"

Thanks,
Lane

[GMO]

That is a good question. I've thought about it myself.
Are there any regulations that talk about this?

Dr. Ajay Shah, where did you come up with your standard "if they have a growth of 1.5 mm to 2mm then they will be required to wear a beard net"

Thanks,
Lane

There are none in the UK, in fact you are not obliged to wear them at all as far as I know.

Hmm, Dr Shah, how do you prove that someone has growth of 1.6mm vs. 1.4mm (which would presumably be ok)?

[Dr Ajay Shah]

Him Lane and GMO,

I was informed about this by a Senior SGS Auditor in Australia who trains other auditors and I personally have not seen anything in any of the standards. Most of the multinationals like Kraft, Nestle etc have their rigid standards on having a beard snood etc and I presume companies who are contract manufacturing adopt these rigid GMP standards to suit their needs.

You can assess the growth of beard on the face by looking at the growth..Hmmm...very difficult to answer this. I am not asking one to stand with a vernier scale ruler to be precise at measuring it. The best policy is to have a clean shaven policy but on religious grounds the company needs to provide them with a beard snood. The best thing is to adopt this according to how stringent one wants their pesonal hygiene policy to be!!

Edited by Dr Ajay Shah, 07 April 2011 - 11:03 AM.

[Amber McCreary]

I am unaware of any standards in the United States the directly refer to beard snoods criteria. (I.e. BRC, AIB, NFS, SQF, Etc.) At the bakery here our men work 12 hour shifts and by the end of their shifts they are anything but clean shaven. Again I feel like this is a practice of the times- what is the difference between chest, arm, and eyebrow hair? I understand a long "ZZ-top/santa clause" beards but the is simply not what we commonly see any more. I would agree more with a policy written arounf hair longer than found in those other areas listed above. (i.e. eyebrows, arm hair, etc.) What are your thoughts on the difference here?

[Anne Z]

Hello all,

The topic of beard snoods came up during the hygiene training. Which areas to wear hairnets etc. Someone pointed out that one employee had to wear a hairnet but he was bald. Reply: it's easy if everybody is following the same hairnet rule as what is the definition of bald...how many mm hair can you have.
But then they replied by saying he has a small short beard. Untill now we had serveral customer audits and none of them asked about beard snoods. Not big fan of introducing them into the company either as I know people won't wear them.

As I guess the main question is where do you work. Food or pharmacy etc.

Anne

[Amber McCreary]

I work in food and as a consumer I'd rather not eat beard hair. Bald employees have aways been a discussion and debate but like you said in order to keep the rules the same across the board we do not allow exceptions. Beard nets are not any option here, they are a requirement, therefor we give them no choice. A rule is a rule.

[Benko]

Here is a puzzle for everyone.

How could a food production plant justify to their food safety standard that it was required to wear a beard snood for gotees and chin hair but not so for employees with just a moustache? I saw this at a customer we supply packaging to.

To note, my company is working towards BRC Packaging and beard snoods was one of the first polices I implemented...and we don't even have any food in our facility.

[AKV]

I will pose this question. I was out shopping the other day and saw a woman that was in badly need of an upper lip wax. I thought how would I handle this if she would have to enter our food production facility. Anyone have any thoughts on how you would handle this?

[GMO]

I will pose this question. I was out shopping the other day and saw a woman that was in badly need of an upper lip wax. I thought how would I handle this if she would have to enter our food production facility. Anyone have any thoughts on how you would handle this?

I have had this question before. Because of the risks of harassment I've referred people to HR (personnel) to raise the question. I know that's ducking out of it but I honestly didn't know how to answer.

[konmar]

I think we are making our lives difficult for no reason. If something is physical risk, like hair, it must be cared of. So I think either it is moustache or beard or long eyebrows it must be covered, cause the main thing is to protect food from anything that will make it unsuitable for consuption

[Ken]

Looking at this from a different perspective I find that beard snoods can be very unhygienic from the point of view that they encourage hand - mouth contact as they are uncomfortable, move, itch...and can therefore be detrimental to food safety, particularly in high risk factories where a product is directly handled. I can't see an employee leaving the production line to wash their hands every time they have cause to adjust their beard snood.

I have a short beard and unlike the hair on my head, it doesn't fall out! Problem off course, is where do you draw the line on what is an acceptable length?

It would be interesting to hear of actual observations of staff behaviour where beard snoods are routinely used - do you see more hand mouth contact?

[idolene]

I am unaware of any standards in the United States the directly refer to beard snoods criteria. (I.e. BRC, AIB, NFS, SQF, Etc.) At the bakery here our men work 12 hour shifts and by the end of their shifts they are anything but clean shaven. Again I feel like this is a practice of the times- what is the difference between chest, arm, and eyebrow hair? I understand a long "ZZ-top/santa clause" beards but the is simply not what we commonly see any more. I would agree more with a policy written arounf hair longer than found in those other areas listed above. (i.e. eyebrows, arm hair, etc.) What are your thoughts on the difference here?

Hi there what about people working in dispatch, that is just counting and packing over already sealed products. do they also need to wear beard snoots?

[Simon]

Personally I've moved away from saying 2 day's growth (variable)....to requiring employees to be clean shaven.  In other words if not clean shaven then you wear a beard snood.  It takes the wriggle room out of the conversation and I find it's easier to enforce.