10 replies to this topic

[shuruq]

hi every body,

 

we are facing this issue with cold section only!!

 

daily inspection of the cold section is always perfect , from the personal hygiene point of view to the handling of raw and ready to serve food the cleanliness  and every thing is on place , but the hair complains is driving me crazy!!

 

we may say that the hair from the customer , but during November we received 6 hair in salad complains  , this is a strong indicator that something wrong is going on .

 

what is the corrective action for such a case ? 

[zene_c]

Hi Raul,

 

You may want to look into how you are controlling ingredients as well.

I had a similar case before but with dimsum.

When we checked the dimsum wrapper was the cause and this was not because of our staff as we sourced the wrappers from a supplier.

This only came out when we saw hair embedded on the wrapper itself.

Upon re-auditing the supplier we found out the owner was the one constantly deviating their hair policy and is the cause of contamination.

 

Hope this helps.

 

zene

[Plastic Ducky]

A couple thoughts on this;

 

1) new policy of mandatory baldness for all, not that's commitment !

 

          -or consider

 

2) promoting your salad as "protein fortified". With all the bogus health claims already in the food industry, this should go       over just fine. I mean, many countries are utilizing bug protein, I see hair protein as an equally untapped resource.

 

           -or maybe

 

3) I agree with zene, it is time to do some auditing of your suppliers hygiene practices.

[Charles.C]

Hi shuruq,

 

Not leaving any items overnight in an exposed location ?

 

I hope not.

[shuruq]

thank you for suggestions .

 

we are catering diet food , based on cook and chill process , the salad will be prepared daily fresh , assembled on plates , covered , labelled , and kept inside chillers for the next day delivery.

 

the supplier inspection is  a great idea , maybe this plastic transparent plates reach our kitchen already contaminated with hair.

 

it is very difficult to ask all staff to shave their head hair , we introduce many procedures during the last 8 months and I don`t want to reach a point that they will not listen any more.

 

maybe the problem came from the uniform , it is a lab coat , hair net , plastic sleeve and gloves , can I add something else to insure full coverage of their bodies? for now I can see some chest hair and also some them are not using hair net properly.

[Charles.C]

Hi shuruq,

 

Yr last observation is worrying. Sounds like the uniform is either inadequate or (more likely?) not being properly closed.

 

Is this a high temperature (30degC+) environment ?

 

If so, although it's best to address the root cause solution (change uniform/hygiene control), you might consider adding a manual, roller, uniform cleaning gadget.  Looks like the units used in painting walls and ceilings but designed for food purposes. Food establishments use them when people move from low risk to high risk areas. Or sometimes all the transition points. i don't know how effective since never used them myself but they look impressive and might make the employees take the issue seriously. Other people here may know if they work.

 

Not a beard-related problem ?

[Charles.C]

addendum,  re the "roller", see this post -

 

http://www.ifsqn.com...ing/#entry31977

[karina.j]

Hi

I am new here and one thing I have noticed noone actually suggested basic solutions.

You can have plenty of policies and procedures but people get into bad habits. 

You mentioned they do not wear PPE correctly.

Do refreshing training with all staff regarding changing in PPE - hairnet before putting coat on, to cover all hair, ears etc.

Add checks to your GMP audit and for a while do it daily regarding changing and wearing PPE.

 

best regards

karina

[Ehab Nassar]

Hi ,

 

Although GMP is very important but to solve this issue you need a deep analysis ( root cause analysis ) 

 

1- Raw fruits :

As I understand that your main ingredient is Fruits ,we should prioritize it in the  analysis .

 

Depending on whether your Fruits are from the farms or from a supplier make further processing ( timing , cutting , peeling ,.... )

 

If you are receiving it as trimmed or pre-prepped , some times the hair contamination occurred  at this stage , so you need to audit your supplier and visit the processing area , your GMP inspection for the dressing code , hair protection and do not miss that the awareness is very important , the workers must be interviewed to assure that the process is stable and well maintained all the time ,   some suppliers use women ( villagers ) to make harvest without awareness , training or proper hair covering , also if it is more than one shit we must visit all of them  .

 

then during receiving an inspection for a quite fair samples to make sure that it is OK , you may use a sorting station before packing it ( it is a big cost , so I prefer to improve the supplier )

 

Other Material and packaging Material :

do the same analysis for all the other martial how it may be contaminated with a hair , even the water , also do the same for packaging material . 

 

2- Personal dressing code :

your dressing code is quite satisfactory as long it is respected by your team , specially the proper usage of hair net strainer .

you can also use a vacuum cleaner for eliminating any probability of carry over through the uniform or coats .

 

3- GMP awareness :

run a refreshment training for all the team , after each compliant and discuss it ( brainstorming ; do not limit them ) , make it in their working area and show the evidence with the complain , and what is the sequences of it , this is a very effective to trigger them to be focusing in this issue .

 

good luck .

[herdy]

Just a thought- if they happened around the same time, could you look into the lot of hair nets being used at that time? There might be a quality issue with the lot of hair nets causing hair to get out and into food. However, if they don't wear them consistently it may be hard to make that argument.

[ahmedmourad]

Dear Shuruq:

in addition to the very useful comments please make sure that the white coats or uniforms are the last stage of wearing the protective clothing ,i mean wearing hair nets before wearing coats.

at the break time or when leaving the processing area they dont take off the hairnets before the coats to prevent hair flow on the coats.

if they will keep wearing hairnet at breaks or other it should be correctly weared all times .

also you can make people directed to air certain before getting to processing areras so that if any fallen hair attached to the protective clothes is down.

 

Best Wishes

Ahmed