Paperwork & record keeping for acidified foods

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!

I have enough knowledge of acidified foods to be dangerous.  if you are truly making an acidified food, have you registered as an acidifed food manufacture, have a scheduled process from a process authority, etc?  I thought the process authority outlined test limits and frequencies.   I don't know your process to comment on ccps.  However any deviation from the scheduled process could render your product unsafe.  

 

are we talking about the same thing, or am I not understanding.  21 cfr 114.3

Hi mikepeters57301!

 

Thanks for the reply.  I have completed the registration for our facility as an acidified food manufacturer, and filed the 2541e for the product.  I also registered and started the better process control school.  We are a co-packer so we do require our customers to have their product reviewed by a process authority.  He set the pasteurization parameters and testing frequencies for in process testing but his letter doesn't say anything about testing the equilibrium pH.  The only thing he told me was that I'm required to do it so I have been looking at different record keeping and trying to figure out the best process for our plant.  So any suggestions you have on that end I would appreciate.  I was also just hoping to network with some other people that deal with acidified products since I am new to the process.  

 

 

Last question would checking the equilibrium pH be considered a CCP

 

If the pH is outside of the range included in your process filing, it should technically result in rework or recall. Generally if you plan to rework or recall something for safety reasons based on a measurement it should be a CCP.

Does anyone have a sample log that they use to track acidifieds?

Does anyone have a sample log that they use to track acidifieds?

 
I use an excel document. In Excel the equation is simple - =Average(your range of numbers). I've attached an example of how I do it. Our pH along with other testing is done by a 3rd party lab.

 

 

Does anyone have a sample log that they use to track acidifieds?

Sure here is what we use.  

Date Produced Product Time Stamp Batch # Sample pH  Date of Testing Time of Testing Cap Check Pass/Fail Equilibrium pH (CCP) QA Initials Manager Review                      

We also test at the 30 day mark for pH.................sometimes the swing is larger than you expect and if you're running close to 4.6 you could be in a bit of a mess