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noahchris97

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Posted 05 April 2017 - 01:19 PM

Morning,

              Just seeking some input / guidance. Its an ice cream dairy plant environment. Water hoses in every room; some hung up, some laying on the floor & don't forget water running at times while on the floor. Now beginning  of my employment I recognized that this is unacceptable. I wanted to eliminate this entirely. The plant is equipped with blue colored drop down lines ( plumed in / not reel design) for sanitizer from a central system. The lines are for sanitizing the lines and etc.

              Few months past I wrote up a procedure for mid day cleanings / change overs performed by production personnel; housekeeping of their areas & equipment. Now I also implemented that at the end of the sanitation process we remove all water lines and store them in the sanitation cage. Now for the procedure, it states that they use the blue sanitizer hoses for their clean ups. By doing so this will eliminate spreading contaminates from the water hose, eliminate water waste, plus the hoses being left on the floor will eliminate cross contamination. Plus  lets not forget the water damage that production employees cause by washing / rinsing equip. without covering them. Also we have experienced some environmental issues in the past and by removing the hoses dramatically reduced them significantly in areas in concern. That is the reason for the procedure to use the sanitize lines for clean ups / change overs, at least the solution has chemical fighting agent that will help reduce / eliminate contaminates / micro.

              Now, update. We are still fighting with the water lines being brought back to the lines after we leave ( sanitation dept.) they claim they need the hot water for chocolate / peanut butter clean ups.  We understand that by leaving a few hoses at those designated areas. But we are finding all of them out. Now since this is happening again, the environmentals are up again.

              The question; Instead of having two hoses out for production, water, sanitizer hoses. I know the sanitizer hoses are supplied with cold water. Now the $100.00 dollar question is, Can we / I supply the sanitizer hoses with hot water instead of cold water? by this way we can eliminate the white hose being taken back out to the production areas.  Also everyone will be happy, production has hot water, environmentals are down, and sanitation has their hoses where they left them; in the cage...

 

Thank you 



Ryan M.

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Posted 05 April 2017 - 03:13 PM

Short answer, it depends.  You will need to check with your chemical company to see what the recommended temperature use of the sanitizer.  Most sanitizers do not work well at elevated temperatures so you will likely hear that from the chemical supplier.  

 

I would recommend you put all the water hoses back, I know...it is more of a monster.  But put them back and focus your efforts on proper use of water versus sanitizer hoses.  I know this is a steeper hill to climb and it is just easier to take it out of the equation, but easy is not always the best way.

 

I've got 15 plus years experience in dairy, almost 20, and had never successfully removed water hoses when in production.  It is just something you have to manage, that's all.  My focus on this has been in the pasteurized areas only, not much regard to raw areas since the product is pasteurized and little exposure to environment after pasteurizing.  Coaching and educating of employees using the hoses is of extreme importance.  I've provided visual aids such as the micro plates from our environmental swabs and the water and sanitizer hose sampling to show them water is not clean and the hoses are not clean.  It has gone a long way, especially in my current facility.



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noahchris97

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Posted 06 April 2017 - 09:02 AM

Morning Ryan,

               Thank you for taking the time for helping me. The thought has been discussed about the training and small tidbits were exercised but not so effective as we have a large abundance of temps that as everyone knows; comes & goes. The better option was to eliminate / take away what was causing, creating a negative impact on the process, the equipment and so on. By removing the hoses in the beginning we seen significant improvement, process, equipment & environmentals and understood the concept of the sanitizer lines and what to use them for.

                For the sanitizer we use the effective range is between 40 degrees & 120 degrees. I believe the melting point for chocolate is 90 I believe. So we will be able to do a chocolate clean up and still have an effective sanitize.. Any thoughts?    



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Posted 06 April 2017 - 09:31 AM

Sanitiser means detergent with disinfectant properties but lots of people say "sanitiser" when they mean "disinfectant".  If you are removing debris then you should be using a true sanitiser or a detergent for the process.  Absolutely the vast majority (if not all) of these chemicals are designed to be used at higher temperatures.  Removing allergens which are likely to be sticky such as peanuts and chocolate though I would definitely recommend using separate detergents and disinfectants.  For one, it would be better from an allergen perspective to have an extra step but secondly from personal experience, a separate disinfectant always seems to work better.

 

As you well know there have been a lot of Listeria outbreaks associated with ice cream in the US.  It's definitely worth some serious thought on this and anything which increases environmentals must stop. It is possible to have safe hose use but do recognise that many factories exclude them completely due to the risk of aerosols.  Have you looked at how they use the hoses while they're cleaning?  Especially if they're high pressure, people love to use them to fire off debris (like a pressure washer) spreading contamination everywhere.  is it possible to redesign your machines to make them readily dismantled and so parts can be taken to a sink or machine to wash?



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Posted 06 April 2017 - 01:10 PM

GMO, sanitizer and disinfectant have a different regulatory definition here in the U.S.  Our term "sanitizer" is equivalent or roughly equivalent to your "disinfectant" and as such, he probably cannot use his sanitizer with temperatures much greater than his stated 120°F. 

 

Even though your melting point is 90°, 120°F may not be sufficient to clean up efficiently.  But you know chocolate better than I.  Also, I may not be reading right, but it appears you're trying to clean and sanitize at the same time.  Sanitizers are not meant for cleaning, but a treatment of surfaces after cleaning.



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Ryan M.

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Posted 06 April 2017 - 10:57 PM

Check with your chemical supplier. Even though it is rated up to 120 degrees it may have diminished sanitize capability at that temperature.

Other persons replying think you are trying to clean, but from my understanding is you intend to hose down areas where there is excess chocolate such as on floor or equipment exteriors. Is that correct?



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noahchris97

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Posted 07 April 2017 - 09:15 AM

Morning Gentlemen,

          Again thank you for your input. Like I mentioned before about production using potable water lines to clean their areas and machines of spills. I want to get away from that as it is causing more harm than good( spreading of contaminates/ micro. Eliminate the water hoses entirely and the are forced to use the blue drop down sanitizer lines for clean ups. The reason for the use of a tempered sanitizer is to be able to remove / melt the chocolate. Production would call sanitation over the PA system to bring out a water hose to the floor so they can use the hose with the hot water to remove / melt the chocolate. Now if I can warm up the sanitizer enough and not go over the allotted range for the sanitizer ( 120 degrees) and be warm enough to melt the chocolate ( 86-90 degrees) we should be able to eliminate the white hose entirely as the blue drop down lines would be able to do the job if we had the white water hose, but the positive of all this is that we have the tempered water & now a chemical fighting agent and their will be no need for the white hoses during production use.

 

Gentlemen to better understand where I'm going with this, I have provided an attachment ( procedure for during production clean ups) 

 

SIDE NOTE: When I say clean ups, its not a full blow clean of chemicals and manual scrubbing an such, its a basic rinsing down of, removing excess product spill over / build up. Housekeeping of the lines & areas..



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Posted 07 April 2017 - 11:12 AM

Hi noahchris,

 

Ice cream/Chocolate not my area, perhaps fortunately, but i am curious as to what specific chemical(s) you are actually using for cleaning and sanitising. Hopefully not "Mixture X".

 

Sorry - I just see you are using PAA (peroxyacetic acid).

 

Afaik this is intended as a sanitizer (ie bacteriocide)  only ? (No direct personal experience).

 

Does this mean there is no preliminary cleaning at all other than from water ?

(Maybe the applied formulation includes another chemical with [hopefullly] detergent properties?)


Kind Regards,

 

Charles.C


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noahchris97

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Posted 07 April 2017 - 01:31 PM

Hey Charles,

                                               "Does this mean there is no preliminary cleaning at all other than from water ?

                                     (Maybe the applied formulation includes another chemical with [hopefully] detergent properties?) 

 

Yes there is. We do or full blown sanitation on 3rd shift. This action / step in the production process is to help eliminate / reduce any contaminates, micros during the upkeep of their lines. Like I mentioned before, production people would whip out the hose, hose everything and their uncles to if they could...lol. by doing so they are creating splashes, aerosols and splashing equipment when cleaning the floor. We are just having a problem of everyone grabbing & using the potable water hoses contaminating everything by being careless if you will and trying to find a better solution where we can kill two birds with one stone so to speak. The removal of chocolate & have a safe rinse down by using the blue drop down hose that has a chemical fighting agent in it...so there would be no use for two hoses; only one to do both jobs per say...   



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Posted 07 April 2017 - 01:51 PM

Just throwing this out there, is there any other way to warm up the piece of equipment to melt the chocolate and remove as much as possible by hand PRIOR to using liquid of any description? 

 

I would caution using the PPA at clean up/ change over when other in process products are exposed. We use PPA as our sanitizer, however, it has 3-4 hours to work its magic before another production run begins

 

Alternatively, could hot water lines be added as a drop down relatively easily? 


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Posted 07 April 2017 - 02:50 PM

Hi noahchris,

 

Ok thks, i think i get it now, this is a kind of stop-gap activity. Sometimes unfairly tagged as "quick and dirty". :smile:

 

Regret I'm not sufficiently familiar with yr hose scenario/jigsaw to advise but if, as per yr OP, the results from EMP are degrading (up = ?), it obviously suggests the overall hygiene status is falling. I do agree that indiscriminate spraying of water everywhere is an excellent method for achieving cross-contamination.

 

Whether the EMP change is significant depends on the numbers of course. And the effectiveness of yr parallel full-blown sanitation operation.

 

I agree that if results were "OK"  before the hose "confusion" you describe, there may be a correlation. Perhaps you can use the numbers to convince the related parties to abandon their individual preferences in the "common good." Or at least accept a temporary "detente" to let you prove yr own point.

 

PS - it certainly sounds like a complex hygiene situation. I deduce from Google that chocolate production attempts to minimise any interaction with  water. I assume pure ice-cream production has the opposite viewpoint.


Kind Regards,

 

Charles.C


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GMO

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Posted 17 April 2017 - 03:01 PM

This all worries me a bit.  There are well known outbreaks of salmonellae by poor use of water around cleaning with chocolate.  I don't understand the point of wet cleaning without using a detergent as the disinfectant will be ineffective in the presence of debris (some are better than others but all of them aren't designed for that purpose).

 

Why not clean less often but more effectively?



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Ryan M.

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Posted 18 April 2017 - 03:34 AM

This all worries me a bit. There are well known outbreaks of salmonellae by poor use of water around cleaning with chocolate. I don't understand the point of wet cleaning without using a detergent as the disinfectant will be ineffective in the presence of debris (some are better than others but all of them aren't designed for that purpose).

Why not clean less often but more effectively?


Yes it can be problematic if not judiciously used. However, dairies in the US are designed for wet cleaning and wet environments. Equipment is typically sealed and the "cleaning" the OP is referring to is rinsing down product off exterior of equipment and floor areas.

I wouldn't be concerned with salmonella rather listeria due to the wet environment.


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Posted 18 April 2017 - 11:26 AM

Yes it can be problematic if not judiciously used. However, dairies in the US are designed for wet cleaning and wet environments. Equipment is typically sealed and the "cleaning" the OP is referring to is rinsing down product off exterior of equipment and floor areas.

I wouldn't be concerned with salmonella rather listeria due to the wet environment.

 

If it's Listeria control you're after, it's an even worse idea. Proper detergent action is needed IMO and I would be very, very concerned at the hose use the OP has identified with the risks of spreading contamination from dirty to clean areas.



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