Traditional Vs ATP Swabbing

Hi all, long time no speak. I hope everyone is well :)

Just a quick question to gauge feedback regarding swabbing. As a small BRC Approved food manufacturer we conduct various Hygiene Assessments throughout our working week, detailed below:


- Daily Rapid Protein Swabs (Colour change type, post clean, pre production)
- Weekly Conventional Swabs (TVC& Entero from scheduled food contact areas, sent to lab)
- Weekly Listeria Swabs (From scheduled areas, sent to lab)


Ultimately, I believe the schedule is not very efficient and possibly out dated in its approach. I am hoping to improve the quality of testing and also reduce testing costs.

What I would like to know is: What are the implications of using an ATP Machine & swabs to replace the colour change swabs and reduce the frequency of the weekly TVC/Entero Swabs?

(Note - this is separate from any Allergen x-contamination testing)

Many thanks in advance for any feedback

SP13

I can't see why switching from a protein swab to an ATP reader would be an issue. Protein swabs check for "protein residues", while an ATP reader is detecting "ATP", which is a chemical found in living cells. Seems to me the ATP might be able to detect more things.

We've been told that ATP testing alone can't replace micro testing, and we're currently performing micro testing after cleaning to help prove the effectiveness of our cleaning program (our company never had to do it before now). I'm curious what types of replies you'll get regarding the correlation of ATP to a micro test (hopefully I can piggy back some information from your thread haha)

Dear sp,

What are the implications of using an ATP Machine & swabs to replace the colour change swabs and reduce the frequency of the weekly TVC/Entero Swabs?

Unsure if first half sentence also linked to 2nd half ?
Unsure of meaning of implications ? eg With respect to what ?

If by "implications' you mean sensitivity for validating cleaning processes, the ATP-Protein method relative sensitivities can vary. This obviously may depend on yr own system (??).
eg FDA 2007 Comparison ELISA, visual, sensitive ATP, total protein to detect presence allergenic food residues- EX-0170.pdf   95.11KB   106 downloads
(repeated from - http://www.ifsqn.com...dpost__p__56703 )

Based on literature and previous threads, AFAIK, the information derived from conventional ATP/Protein swabs may/may not be correlated to microbiological conditions, ie if interested to apply, it is necessary to do any required validation oneself for specific conditions in use.
BRC 4.11.2 does not specifically seem to require both non-micro/micro data for cleaning validation, but IMEX many customers will.

Assuming yr micro program schedule is "risk assessed", to answer yr micro frequency query will probably need to know something like -

1. what kinds of product/process are involved, i assume RTE (something) ?
2. typical number samples for micro/week (eg total 2 samples is not quite same as 6)
3. satisfactory relevant past history can be assumed ?

Rgds / Charles.C