3 replies to this topic

[Raven]

Good afternoon all,

 

I work for a pet food manufacturer using extruding as our primary method of production. We currently tear down and clean between product changeovers and clean everything weekly. The question has been raised if it would be possible to run products back to back and just "purge" the first 50-100 lbs of product. Several in our company have stated that this is what everyone else is doing. This has not been my experience but my experience in the food industry is limited to work at two food manufacturers.

 

This process is assuming that the first portion of the material is being used to remove the lingering residues of the product before it. This wouldn't change the weekly cleaning but would significantly improve up-time in production. We certainly don't want to create a risk by using a method like this and we just achieved SQF lvl 2. I certainly don't want to jeopardize that either. 

 

• Does anyone have any experience with this type of method?
• If so, any tips on what to avoid?
• What about like and unalike product formulas?
• Are there materials that could be used for the purging process to reduce the amount of formula being tossed at changeover? 

We're producing products that are both strait up treats and some that would be considered supplements. Some treats have meat in them and are exposed to a thermal treatment. Many of the supplements are cold formed and have strict separation between the two processes. 

 

Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. 

[Theodore Donald Kerabatsos]

We do this quite regularly. The only times we are tearing down and running a full sanitation is in the presence of differing allergens. We schedule products to try to avoid conflicting allergen. All that being said, I'm not privy to the rules and regulations on pet food/allergens/labeling but we're making consumer retail products at a USDA inspected plant with a pending SQF audit. I also worded our SSOP exactly like that for USDA Organic certification for "split operations" which is organic to conventional or vise-versa, pretty much the same scenario with allergens, and it was approved by our auditor. Hope that helps. 

[Theodore Donald Kerabatsos]

Perhaps amend your SSOP and run it by an inspector or auditor before making it official. Document the change in procedures and run with it. That's what I would do. They might propose you come up with a way of documenting the process. I have personally have no experience with purging processing aids.

[Raven]

Thank you Theodore. I will mock up some changes and pass it by our certifying body for comment.