Verification egg and milk swab test

Hi all,

we have egg, milk, tree nuts, soy and peanut in our Bakery facility. we are working in a project with a customer that wants to take out may contain declaration for egg and milk from labeling. I would like to know if special swab for milk and egg would be enough to prevent any cross contamination. how could I cover my cleaning verification program to make sure there is no cross contamination in finished product?

 I would appreciate all your info and point of view.

Thanks,

In order to remove the "may contain" statement, that CFIA doesn't like anyway, you will need to be 100% sure every time that sanitation was effective.

There are alot of rapid analysis allergen protein kits out there for verification

I would run some batches using the existing packaging with the may contain statement. Swab post sanitation repeatedly until you are sure you can remove the statement. I would even go so far as to suggest dumping egg/milk in some nooks and crannies post production/pre sanitation and then swab those tight spots to validate complete removal.

I would explain to the customer that going through the validation time and expense is nicer and easier than an undeclared allergen recall

Hi Dwei,

The use of swabs is just to verify that your cleaning process was effective.

To remove the "may contain declaration", you need to reassess your whole process and supply chain, as you probably know. That's a big challenge for a plant where milk and eggs are used. Sometimes such products are outsourced to milk and egg free plants, to be sure.

Kind regards,

Gerard Heerkens