SQF Concerns: Chairs/Stools in the production areas

Looking for some personal experience on if chairs/stools are an issue in SQF certification?

In what context do you have your concerns?

From a health and safety perspective - ie trip/slips/idiots leaning back in chairs and falling over backwards?

From a food safety perspective - ie fabric chairs seats (hygiene and cleaning), foreign body risks?

Or from a perspective perspective - ie if people have time to sit around in chairs they obviously do not have enough work to keep them busy?

Food safety concerns.

IMEX no issue with chairs being in a production office that has a door that opens directly into a production floor. Just steer away from wooden chairs/stools. However, you have jogged my mind and it would be a good idea to add that somewhere into a Sanitation Schedule, just afraid it may oxidize over time.

Too many / too comfortable chairs might be a FS hazard.

Rgds / Charles.C

We had chairs on the floor in a high risk SQF Level 3 facility and the auditor had no problem with it.  

Cover yourself by performing a risk analysis.  Make sure they are clean and in good repair.  Get metal stools with no backs.  This keeps your employees from lounging and not working, they are uncomfortable so they won't sit all the time, and there is no fabric or plastic to get into your product.  Keep them clean.  They could even be on the master sanitation schedule for the room or however you break down your cleaning assignments.

There is no reason you can't have stools.

We have employees on the inspection line that cant stand for long periods. We use draft chairs made of vinyl and metal, no arm rests. They are cleaned/sanitized weekly at minimum, the concern I have had in my risk assessment is that people touch the chair then touch product. As long as GMP's and prerequisite programs are effective then the use of chairs is acceptable with in our low risk processes. Chairs in high risk processes may not be as acceptable. Chairs, especially ones with wheels, have a lot of places for micro activity and if the chair height is adjustable it may have grease or hydraulic fluids in some of the mechanisms.

I don't know your setup but are you able to have hand sanitizer nearby after they sit down?  We had hand sanitizer at the tables at the pasta plant I worked at so that employees could sanitize their hands during their shift.

Hello all, as long as it's meeting its Food Safety Requirement , and can be justified with the Risk analysis, I don't think there shouldn't be a problem

Hello rrana