Greeting all,
My new company is a small business and want to get SALSA accreditation. They do not have proper procedures in place which I am working on it, atm. The main obstacle is business size and budget restrictions.I’d highly appreciate, if you can help!
Our raw materials are chilled & frozen chicken and meat (beef, pork, lamb). Our finished goods are raw meat preps (cuts, diced & minced) no cooking
1.Shelf life:
1- Is it possible to validate the shelf life based on just the risk assessment without doing lab testing studies?
2- Bearing in mind that chilled raw meat could be used/prepared at any point of its shelf life; i.e. in the first or last days of its original (supplier) shelf life (depending on supplies and consumption/ production rate), What shelf life may be proposed for the following products (P.s. VP= Vacuum packed HT = High tensile bags ''non-vac pack'')
Chilled => trim/cut => HT => chilled
Chilled Meat => Cut & Mince => HT => chilled
2.a- Can we keep the original shelf life? is it possible to extend
Chilled => trim/cut => VP => chilled
2.c- Can the original life be extended based on using VP?
Chilled => trim/cut => HT/ VP => Frozen
Chilled => Cut & Mince => Burger=> HT => Frozen
2.d- What could be the best shelf life?
Frozen => defrost => trim/cut => HT => chilled
Frozen => defrost => trim/cut => VP => chilled
2.e- What could be the best shelf life?
Frozen Offal => defrost => trim/cut => VP => chilled
2.f- What could be the best shelf life?
2. Cleaning & sanitation; again because of budget restrictions, could we do without cleaning validation/verification testing jobs (ATP swabs, environment hygiene lab testing), i.e. depend on manufacturer recommendation and staff training for validation and physical inspection after cleaning for validation?
3.Metal detector; could we do without metal detection, especially that most of work is done by using knives while mincer is used only for 2 items (minced meat & burger).
Thanks in advance !