Storing Food Packaging Materials on the Floor

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding packaging materials on floors.  In my cgmp training I was told that we need to keep all our food packaging materials off the floors on pallets.  We can manage corrugate boxes but have a challenge with 55gal fiber drums.

My company mills herbs and spices.  The materials that are milled fall directly into fiber drums that are lined with food grade poly liners.  Currently the drums themselves sit on a corrugate pallet pad on the floors.  When milling is finished the poly bags are sealed then drum lids applied and sealed.  Drums are then moved onto a wooden pallet with a corrugated pallet pad.  Sometimes these drums get double stacked (pallet of 4 drums on top of another pallet of 4 drums).  

The plant manager also pointed out that when these drums are delivered they come on a truck container that does not have any protection against floor container.  The drums are also basically dragged on the floors from the container to storage area, which are currently lined with only corrugate pallet pads. 

We can probably start transferring and storing the drums on pallets vs dragging on the floors, but we still have a concern when the drums are used during production.  The drums fit perfectly under the mills.  Our only options seem to be either redo the frame for the milling machines and extend the legs, or use smaller drums.  Both options are quite costly.  Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions? Or do you guys think what we are currently doing is acceptable?  

Smaller drum with bottom dolly that will raise the drum off the ground/floor. It appears what you are doing is not acceptable and your shipper should get with the program too.

My opinion:  food packaging materials would be direct contact, unless you had something strange on the outside that leaked through the direct contact material.  In your case, the poly bags are the direct contact packaging material.  The fiber drums are secondary packaging that does not contact the food product.  Unless the fiber drums become contaminated with something that could transfer into the food, I don't see why you would have to keep them off the floor.

Hi there,

Food packaging materials storage on the floor is a subject that is a bit complicated and need to be looked into in a more divergent manner; e.g. I make plastics packaging material and i pack them in sleeves then in cartons; if i keep cartons on the floor, the user will have to handle cartons from the bottom,so instead of my production staff contaminating the packaging, the contamination will be from my customers staff while handling the outer packaging;so to prevent contamination on the food packages, i place the cartons on pallets not. its about the food supply chain way of thinking, can my omission cause contamination at the next level of supply chain,

Thanks

The drum itself serves as protection for the product and should not need to be stored on a pallet.

I would think that the plastic liner should not be stored on the floor therefore the drum is acting like a pallet and keeping that off the floor.  Although if you could adapt your process and use pallets or skids and move the drums around with pallet jacks you might eliminate an Occupational manual handling hazard.