Hi! I'm a new member to the site and also have a few questions! I have been working in the food industry for 6 years, primarily with snack foods. I'm now working in beverages and we recently added a couple new products that fall into the acidified foods category.
I was wondering the best way to set up the paperwork & record keeping for these products since we must test the equilibrium pH the next day. Do we need to test each batch that is produced? We typically run 3,000 gallon batches which yields about 2,000 cases. Is 1 sample from each batch enough?
Also on an example I found for retorted products the record included doing a tear down of the container. We run glass and PET bottles using HTST for pasteurization. Would I need to include checking the caps and vacuum when we check the equilibrium pH?
Also from an auditing standpoint what is the best way to keep these records? Should they get filed with daily paperwork or should I be keeping in their own binder? We run the products maybe once a month so I didn't know how closely auditors/inspectors would need to check them.
Last question would checking the equilibrium pH be considered a CCP or just a standard testing procedure?
Any help or examples of records would be appreciated!