Freezer & Chiller risk assessment
Hi All,
My auditor has give us comment during audit about our freezer & chiller temperature were not monitored during sunday. Practically sunday is our factory offday. So, no one to monitor and record our temperature. Our freezer (-18'C) does not have data logger to record the temperature.
Then, my auditor ask us to conduct a documented risk assessment to show that the risk is low if we dont monitor the temperature on Sunday.
How to do the risk assessment? Appreciated your help
A manufacturing freezer does not typically run close to -18degC, much, much colder ??
The risk assessment would look at the history of issues with the temperature in the freezer and chiller and the severity of issue if there was a problem.
Is this a storage freezer and cooler? Have you had issues with it in the past? If the refrigeration broke down on Saturday just after the last check how much would the temperature increase before it was checked on Monday and what would be the impact on the product from a food safety ahd quality perspective.
You could look into installing an alarm that would notifiy someone if the temperature rose about a certain limit.
What shall be validated is the alarm, this is, the pair time/temperature that will trigger the alarm.
i.e, you settle 20 mins at T<-15, then validate that the PRODUCT temperature will not drop below a legal (or internal limit),
best regards,
Leila
Honestly...get yourself a portable chart recorder. You might be surprised with the temperature fluctuations you see on Sunday...or maybe not, at any rate, you will then have documentation of your temperatures/time.
In one of my previous workplaces maintenance would shut off the coolers and freezer on the weekend as we were down. After I started I installed chart recorders to monitor temperature/time...low and behold, the temperatures in cooler and freezer would be above legal maximums after about 10 to 12 hours on weekends.
The practice of shutting them off stopped after I had the documented temperatures.