Hi all,
I am working in a company which produces edible oils, fat emulsions and milled corn grains.
We are into ISO 22000:2005. During our pre- assessment with a certifying body, microbial analysis/ monitoring is one of the findings.
Based on FDA- our products belong to the low risk food category, foods that are unlikely to contain pathogenic microorganisms and will not normally support their growth because of its characteristics and are unlikely to contain harmful chemicals. However, we do annual microbial test for finished product as monitoring through third party laboratory analysis. But, we do not have microbial tests on food contact surfaces, compressed air we are using to blow impurities from our packaging materials, and other cleaning validation.
My question is, do we really need to tighten our monitoring in terms of microbial test? Like the frequency of daily for our products? Or every start up/ shutdown for our machines and equipment?
At the moment, we do not have a micro laboratory.
Thanks :-)