Hi Food Safety friends,
I have an issue with birds entering my production area from time to time (we are addressing the entry points as we speak).
When one is observed, production is halted or not allowed to start until it has been killed or has left the building.
My boss is adamant that since majority of the lines are covered, especially the filling and capping areas, this is not an issue and the lines should be able to run regardless.
How can I explain the seriousness of this occurrence referring to documented procedures or requirements (he responds well to these)or is it not an issue because of the coverings?
R.
I wish I could get management to see the importance of shutting down as well. We do all the typical bird removal "encouragement" that most other plants do, except the moving decoy objects. We use screens, bird off repellent, spikes, noise makers, and most of our dock buffers are sloped so they can't roost. The problem is that someone in the warehouse will open up a door and not put up a screen. We then get bird visitors. Our building is full of nooks and crannies and we have a ton of high warehousing space, so we can't get to the birds when they come in. We turn off all the lights and open a dock door. We then hope we can get the bird to leave (if we can even see it).
Production never shuts down during this process, especially since most of the time the bird is contained in the warehouse. We have had one occasion where the bird made it to the production area, but we were able to get the bird back towards the warehouse (and then it was never seen again). The same argument is made here, because most of our process is enclosed. My concern is really with the fact that we have tanks, blenders, silos, and mixers. They don't all get opened regularly, but if someone is cleaning out a tank or opening a hatch and the bird happens to get in before the tank door is closed, we would have a problem.
QAGB