Purpose.
To ensure that effective procedures are in place to prevent contamination of food products and food contact surfaces from glass, hard plastic and wood.
Frequency.
At all times.
Responsibility
All personnel.
Procedure
1. General requirements.
- The QA manager maintains Registers of Glass and Hard Plastic for all areas of the site.
- Production supervisors are responsible to notify the QA Manager of any changes to the Registers.
- Audits for monitoring the condition of glass and hard plastic items within the production floor (FOR FS010 - Glass & Hard Plastic Audit Record) take place on a departmental basis and their frequency is determined by a risk assessment (FOR FS009 - Glass & Hard Plastic Risk Assessment Form). The introduction of new equipment, or changes to existing equipment are reviewed to ensure that glass is whenever practical, eliminated.
- All lighting in production areas is protected with the use of plastic sleeves or defusers.
- The use of wood, plastic and glass is prohibited as much as possible within the site. Raw materials are not delivered in glass containers. Any exceptions should be approved in writing by the QA Manager.
- Employees shall not bring glass bottles or containers into the site.
- Fly killers used in the premises have been identified and a plan of their position has been compiled. No EFK is placed above stored food or working area.
- Fly killers are checked every month for damages and are serviced by the contracted pest control company. Records of their service, are kept by the QA department.
- All utensils used by the personnel, are checked prior commencing work for their condition, in order to avoid contamination (FOR FS011 - Pre work Utensils Daily Audit Report).
NOTE
Bulbs of lights or EFK’s are changed only outside production hours, in order to minimise contamination of products by breakage. When replacement of a bulb has taken place, the responsible engineer should contact the production Mgr on site to request cleaning of surrounding areas (if required) and to inform him/her for completion of the job. If during bulb replacement a breakage will take place, then the glass breakage procedure will be initiated as described below.
2. Action in the event of glass/ hard plastic breakage.
- Stop all machinery and equipment in the affected area and instruct all personnel to remain in position until further notice. Movements of personnel shall be restricted in and out that area. Inform the Production Manager or a supervisor for the incident.
Note: The person who spots the incident, remains at that area and does not move around, in order to avoid further contamination.
- The area within 10m radius of the breakage must be effectively isolated and thoroughly searched for any glass fragments (equipment and machinery included)
- The affected area shall be cleaned thoroughly and any glass remains shall be disposed in a safe manner.
Note: Vacuum cleaners are not used for glass clean-up operations unless dedicated to this task and marked accordingly.
- Equipment used for cleaning the affected area, shall be cleaned thoroughly at the end in order to avoid further contamination. Dedicated equipment for cleaning glass is preferred. For the same reason, cleaners involved shall change their overalls. Shoes and overall of all personnel leaving the breakage area is checked to avoid contamination.
- All cleaning equipment used to remove glass is immediately disposed of with the glass outside the factory.
- The fragments of glass or glass like materials are inspected, and where practical pierced back together to try and determine whether all of the glass has been accounted for.
- The production can restart only after inspecting the area in detail and authorisation of the Production or the QA Manager has been given.
- Food products under suspicion of being contaminated, shall be isolated, segregated, inspected and treated accordingly with the findings.
- The QA Manager shall report any incident of glass breakage using the Glass Breakage / Disposal Report FOR FS008.
A sample of the glass is retained for reference and if needed for further analysis
I hope this will be useful for you.
Cheers