Micro. Guidelines for Food Contact Surfaces

Hello all,

Can someone tell me if the presence of listeria on clean and disinfected food contact surface is acceptable? If yes can i get the limit range?

Thank you

Hello all,

Can someone tell me if the presence of listeria on clean and disinfected food contact surface is acceptable? If yes can i get the limit range?

Thank you

Hi faatimah,

As I understand the official approval of a "sanitizer" in USA requires a validated capability of achieving 5 log reduction under defined conditions for specified pathogens.
So subsequent detection of Listeria may depend on the context of yr OP.
More information on yr procedure/product/process/chemical(s)/surface is required to opine much further.

A generic answer to yr OP could be that, ideally, disinfectants applied under recommended conditions should render a clean, non-porous SS surface, l.monocytogenes free (=undetectable)

US listeria climate focuses on L. monocytogenes and other pathogenic strains, and has a zero tolerance for food contact surfaces (or arguably, based on recent enforcement actions, anywhere in your facility).

In general,  limits for pathogens should always be zero, since they have the potential to proliferate after the product leaves your control. It also takes a lot of data to have any sort of confidence in quantitative microbial data if you did want to establish a limit above zero. If you're working with good non-porous surfaces and cleaning soils effectively, a 0 pathogens standard on product contact surfaces should be achievable.

Zero.

If you can't get zero, get help from sanitation and maintenance to achieve zero.  A product contact surface should be non-porous and easily cleaned so you should achieve zero every time after sanitation regardless of your process, products, etc.