Help with 'Environmental Hygiene Audit'
Hi everyone
I'm looking for some help, advice or even better- a template of an environmental hygiene audit...This is carried out on a monthly basis, by QA's and its basically a check of all equipment/production areas and warehouse for cleanliness. At the moment I'm doing it with a notepad and camera- then filling in our Corrective Action template and passing on to the hygiene manager. But i'd like a template or guidance which I could edit to suit our site which can then be used to train others (we need to hire QA's soon). I know of course that a checklist isn't a good idea as auditing is best done by looking for anything you don't like/think is correct and going by a list could mean other problems are missed- but i'm wondering if anyone has any type of template/form which I could see?
We have templates/guidance for other audits- fabrication, glass and plastic etc, but not factory hygiene!
Any help will be appreciated!
Shelley
PS- we are a food service bakery, BRC certified. :spoton:
We are an SQF 2 facility going to SQF 3 this year. We have an outside lab come into our facility quarterly to do environmental swabbing. Especially on places like drains, forklift wheels floors etc. We also internally swab with ATP tester on random machines and machines that just had a full sanitizing. We use Hygiena tester for this and is pretty affordable even for smaller companies. Hope this helps.
Hi shelley,
It may help if you can specify the clause in BRC standard which you are responding to.
Hi shelley,
It may help if you can specify the clause in BRC standard which you are responding to.
It's clause 3.4.4 In addition to the internal audit programme there shall be a programme of documented inspections to ensure the factory environment and processing equipment is maintained in a suitable condition for food production. These inspections shall include:
- hygiene inspections to assess cleaning and housekeeping performance
- fabrication inspections to identify risks to the product from the building or the equipment
The frequency of these inspections shall be based on risk but no less than once per month in open product areas
Thanks
Shelley
We have two audits we do. One is a GMP audit which looks at general food safety aspects including hygiene the other is a fabrication audit which looks at the building and equipment.
We have a checklist for each but it's specific to our factory and based on what we've typically found and what things we'd be expected to look for. Of course you could also decide to roll these two audits into one, just make sure you make it clear on your check list which aspects are for hygiene and which fabrication so you can prove to your external auditor that you check for both.
We actually do a days hygiene sweep fortnightly so looking at mid shift cleaning and a night in depth hygiene audit quarterly but covering 3 different departments so effectively we still do one a month on average. That's always been acceptable to auditors we've had. We do fabrication monthly on days.
So "typical" hygiene questions may include:
Look at a clean piece of machinery. Is there any evidence of debris?
Are the cleaning records complete?
Are the chemicals being dosed correctly?
Is the cleaning equipment in good condition?
Are the cleaning team aware of allergen risks?
Watch the cleaning process, does it match the instruction card?
"Typical" fabrication questions:
Machinery - look for any metal, plastic etc fatigue?
Environment, any floor damage?
Wall damage?
Ceiling damage?
Any signs of loose sealant?
Any loose foreign bodies around e.g. nuts, bolts?
The best place to start may be your existing audits. What things have they raised in the past? Also look at the BRC and any retailer standards clauses on these issues and put in questions which cover off the clauses. Then once you launch it, even if it's a short list to start off with, encourage your team to look for things outside the checklist and then add on things as they're found. Don't forget to look for compliance too of course!