Cleaning and Sanitation of Bottled Water Bottling Lines
Hi Food Safety friends,
I am new to the bottled water industry. My company uses ozone to disinfect our purified water and since ozonated water is passing through all lines, there are no sanitation procedures in place for the bottling lines.
Is the fact that ozonated water is passing through the lines sufficient cleaning?
Thanks
Allison
You should do some micro testing on the lines. It's really the only way to tell if your cleaning is effective.
When I worked at a bottled water plant, we cleaned when our micro results started showing an uptick from the baseline instead of on a regular schedule (of course maximum time between CIPs was set, and if we noticed mirco staying healthy for much longer, we would adjust our times)
We do daily HPC and Total Coliform testing and only have problems when the Ozone generator is malfunctioning (which is seldom).
So would this indicate that the ozone disinfectant is sufficient?
When you did clean the lines, what did you use?
Its all based on the micro and analytic testing and as long as you have a secondary sanitation method as the back up, and can quantitativally verify that your product and equipement is sterile you should be good. If you are going to not have a secondary sanitation method, I suggest testing more often as validation.
Ugh, I just wrote a ridiculously long reply and then it got deleted because I tried to PM you.
Okay, take two:
I would recommend running a validation. This is a one time test. You clean as you normally would (with a functioning ozone). Then you test for HPC, Y&M, Total Coliform, and pathogens. For water I'd say at a minimum you need E. Coli, Pseudomonas, and Listeria. Then if the pathogens are negative and you're satisfied with the indicator levels, that's your proof that your cleaning process is sufficient.
For daily testing, that's your verification. We did similar plus yeast & mold. Mold would give us a lot of problems when the water sources had algae blooms, particularly in the summer, and would give us an off musty taste. We always had issues with the filler heads, but maybe it was factory design. The historical data you have now can be used to set a baseline, and you can base "data driven" cleaning off how far off of the baseline your results are.
We had both Ozone and UV as kill steps, but we cleaned with a 7 step CIP weekly and a 5 step if we had to during the week. This consumed a LOT of water, and you have to monitor the 5T's very closely. If you're able to stick with ozone to clean as well I'd do that.
Just a thought
Cazx
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Would you also look at cryptosporidium / legionella at your validation stage?
Just a thought
Cazx
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Good point - that should be used as a starting short list to put it lightly. All kinds of terrifying lil' guys thrive with water.
Bromate formation in ozone disinfection system is a major chemical hazard.
Does your HACCP plan address it?