IFS ver 6, clause 3.4.9: Hygiene Monitoring Risk Assessment

Hi, my company is doing seafood processing and we do hygiene monitoring such as swab test on worker's hands etc. I have a problem to fulfill IFS ver 6 requirement clause 3.4.9 "based on hand analysis and assessment of associated risks, there shall be a program to control the effectiveness of hand hygiene." I have the existing schedule for hand swab but i dont keep any risk assessment on this, thus anyone can share their risk assessment? or any opinion on this subjecyt?

Hi, my company is doing seafood processing and we do hygiene monitoring such as swab test on worker's hands etc. I have a problem to fulfill IFS ver 6 requirement clause 3.4.9 "based on hand analysis and assessment of associated risks, there shall be a program to control the effectiveness of hand hygiene." I have the existing schedule for hand swab but i dont keep any risk assessment on this, thus anyone can share their risk assessment? or any opinion on this subjecyt?

Hi daisy,

I'm not a user of IFS but here is a simple suggestion -

Generic Suggestion for Low Risk Process

Hazard – pathogenic micro. contamination via hands contacting food

Control measure – effective handwashing PRP (inter alia)

monitoring –

(a) visual at daily start-up, etc

(b) micro. evaluation of hands (average) of 3 randomly selected employees / month via APC measurement

Acceptable Micro Level after cleaning, APC  not > 100cfu/cm2

Corrective Action – Follow Up/Re-training/Verification for unsatisfactory cases.

Sampling frequency to be doubled in case of  100% failure for any monthly sampling or average failure rate   >20% for any 3 month period. Together with additional training sessions.

Increase basic frequency(s)/tests for High Risk Process.