Sanitizing Disposable Gloves - Food Contact Surface?
Hi Community!
In the past, I have always had glove policies that proper hand washing techniques must be followed, hands cleaned and sanitized before putting on gloves, gloves sanitized before use and as needed, and sanitizer does not replace hand washing.
This is because gloves provide a false sense of sercurity, gloves are not delivered as sterile (within a typical food plant budget), and gloves are a food contact surface. I have a strongly ingrained belief that not sanitizing your gloves is "totally gross", because who knows who took the glove before you did, and poor compliance or technique with hand washing between glove changes.
I've recently joined a small (two plant) company and would like to implement the clean and sanitized glove policy. The other QA Manager does not allow hand sanitizer on the floor and believes that sanitizer is a chemical contaminant and will adulterate our product. The QA Manager emphatically forbid hand sanitizer on the floor when I mentioned it. In fact, the previous QA Manager had put out sanitizer at work stations, and this one removed the dispensers. :yeahrite:
I maintain that sanitizer, which is generally alcohol based, evaporates too quickly to transfer to product, and that it creeps me out to think about all of those nasty gloves touching product I have to run sensory on! I hate walking onto the factory floor and seeing it happen! It's disgusting, and I wouldn't let an employee do anything to food I dont want done to my own food.
Three questions -
1. Is it acceptable to sanitize nitrile gloves with and NSF no rinse approved sanitizer and then touch
a) Food contact surfaces
b) Food itself (Our product is manually packaged, so employees must pick up food and put it in the packaging)
c) if you consider it a chemical hazard, can you mitigate the risk by a validation study of laying a test strip on the gloves to make sure the sanitizer is not in too high of a concentration? (again, this seems crazy to me)
2. Would you use E3 or D2 rated sanitizer for dispoasable gloves? (D2 for contact surfaces, E3 for hands)
3. How do you control a visceral reaction so strong? ACK! It's like not asking an employee to put their hair net on all the way, or walking by someone sneezing on a line and then going about their business. I want to yell "UGH, get away from that product! YOUR GLOVES ARE SO DIRTY RIGHT NOW." I don't know if I can continue to walk past unsanitized gloves. It's like my own personal hell.
Solved my own problem - Thanks, SQF code 11.3.2.3 , and code 11.3.2.6
Solved my own problem - Thanks, SQF code 11.3.2.3 , and code 11.3.2.6
Dear magenta_majors,
The general (food handling) situation is perhaps not quite so clear as you (and possibly also SQF) consider.
See this 2012 document -
Hand Hygiene.pdf 2MB 226 downloads
And this thread -
http://www.ifsqn.com...nol/#entry68133
I would also add that many processors use disposable surgical gloves which are "sterile" at reception, at least the ones i tested seemed to be.
Rgds / Charles.C
Dear magenta_majors
You mentioned an important point in passing. There are differences in approvals for sanitizers approved for hands vs. 'hard surfaces' - which gloves are. Your sanitation supplier should be able to provide guidance on the appropriate sanitizer.