13 replies to this topic

[Michael1984]

Hi Guys

 

Wondering what everyones understanding is around paper sack opening and resealing procedures? I need to write a new procedure in order to satisfy a new standard requirement from one of our customers, all of our dry ingredients are supplied to us in large, sealed paper sacks, they are opened on the production floor and used to make up formulations etc.

 

Basically I need to be able to provide a documented procedure which outlines that our methods for opening and resealing paper sacks do not pose a potential contamination risk to product.

Does anyone out there currently use any similar procedures or know anything about them? Would love to hear some peoples ideas or guidance.

 

Cheers

 

Michael

[scppvjune]

Hello,

Why need to bring paper sack to open and store in the production floor? Why don't pre-weight or bring in as small amount to the production floor and kept those left over in the storage / pre-weight areas?

Paper might be source of foreign materials (torn in pieces especially if use / store in the production floor that wet or high humidity).

Moreover, dry ingredient might pick up moisture easily and affect its characteristic if left in the production floor (especailly if the cleaning for the production floor involve wet cleaning methods).

When open, try to cut with sharp utensil in straight line might avoiding paper sack to tear in pieces and cross foreign material contamination.

Regards,

[George @ Safefood 360°]

The use of paper sacks is common in the industry and they pose a risk of physical contamination. Obviously paper is a risk and also the metal from knives that are used to cut open the sacks. 

 

In most cases the paper sack is opened and used in full e.g. 25 Kg unit as part of the recipe. This can be done through a sieve or mesh which will retain any bits of paper from the opening and cutting of the paper. The sack can then be discarded carefully. However it sounds like you are using only a portion of the sack contents and then resealing it. This is not good practice. You should consider de bagging all the contents of a sack into a suitable food grade container which can be closed. As the ingredient is required you can open it and use dedicated scoops to transfer it to the batch. The container should be clearly labelled and included in a cleaning schedule. The batch number should be transferred to the label for traceability. Ideally all this should be done in a separate room from production. The containers can be complete with wheels making them easy to move to production as required. For situations where you use large quantities of an ingredient in sack a bulk handling system can be considered however investment is required. 

 

You will need a control program for the inspection, checking and cleaning of the mesh and a knife control program for any used in the cutting process.

 

George    

[Charles.C]

Dear Michael,

 

This is also a perpetual headache for coating/breading/frying operators. The sack is simply never empty at the end of some days.

 

George’s procedure sounds excellent for a model response to the OP. Hopefully no logistical difficulties.

 

The sieving step is IMEX effective against so many weird alien objects as to be routinely indispensable but I suspect the shortcut to simply close / retie the unfinished sack is irresistible for many processors. So far have never encountered an over-perceptive query from auditor or customer.

 

There is an old thread here where a customer demanded sampling / data records for every batch of incoming (sacked) ingredients for his finished product. No re-closing method of perfect hygiene could be found for that one from memory. The traditional method still in use for many commodities at import / export is spearing of course. More shudders.

 

Rgds / Charles.C

[Tony-C]

I prefer to decant as per George's post. The problem comes with managing the labelling of the container and maintaining traceability. I have seen several solutions but the one that worked best was to retain the original label in a wallet stuck to the container.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

[jenky]

In our facility, we deal with a lot of opened partial bags.  It is simply a consequence of small batch manufacturing with a lot of different ingredients.  We have implemented a procedure by which the opened bag is resealed inside another poly bag.  This way we maintain the original label/lot for traceability and have guarded against exposure, spills, etc. 

 

Good luck. 

[beatlevi]

George, what the mesh size you suggest for dry ingredients ?

[Tony-C]

George, what the mesh size you suggest for dry ingredients ?

 

Best practice is to use the finest filter that is practical to use. It will depend on your ingredients but 2 or 3 mm if possible would be typical.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

[Bill78]

In our facility, we deal with a lot of opened partial bags.  It is simply a consequence of small batch manufacturing with a lot of different ingredients.  We have implemented a procedure by which the opened bag is resealed inside another poly bag.  This way we maintain the original label/lot for traceability and have guarded against exposure, spills, etc. 

 

Good luck. 

Excellent solution! 

[George @ Safefood 360°]

George, what the mesh size you suggest for dry ingredients ?

It's is impossible to say exactly. The short answer is a small as possible consistent with the practical operation of your business. Some dry ingredients are not always 'dry' and will require a larger mesh size. You need to have a range of screens and the small is used for the ingredients in question which should be specified on the operational record/batch record.

[Michael1984]

Thanks for the input guys, I am in a Smallgoods manufacturing facility, with multiple types of products so processes vary quite a bit from area to area, some of these suggestions are defiantly worth looking into, thanks!

[Dr Vu]

i gotta piggyback on this thread- we recently inherited like  truckloads of the FIBC supersacks  and they are all Open spout (ie covered at the top) and i need them to be open top.. Any suggestestions on equipment i can use to cut off the top cover and not subject  the product to lots of threading? secondly, i would like to segragate a bunch of them for  specific uses ... either by tagging or if possibly by using a food dye on the handles.. any  thoughts ?

[RyH]

I appreciate this is quite an old post however we are having a similar issue in that staff struggling to cut the bag cleanly in one motion causing tears/fraying etc...

Due to the layout of our site this process is required in the production area so decanting elsewhere isn't an option.

Is anyone aware of a better solution than using knives? I'm thinking possibly a guillotine that will lop the top of the bag off in one go.

Thanks in advance.

Ry

 

[jfrey123]

Not sure if I should share youtube links, but if you search on there for "opening stitched feed bag" or something similar, there's a lot of videos showing how to cut one stitch and have the string pull cleanly out of the entire bag with one pull.  This was our standard in my old spice factory when we had to mill flax seed that came in plastic fiberweave sacks that were stitched closed, because knifing the side of those sacks created fluffs of plastic threads everywhere.