Personal Hygiene in a Closed Food Manufacturing System
Hi ! I belong to the coconut oil manufacturing business. Our production facilties is "closed type" - meaning, the personnel never get to touch the materials to be crushed and cooked oil... they all flow in pipes (overhead/underground) and the goods are conveyed (through the same pipeline) from one food processing unit to another.
In this regard, do the production personnel have to follow the hand-washing, protective uniforms, etc. since they never get in contact with the product anyway?
Thanks for your help.
Hi ! I belong to the coconut oil manufacturing business. Our production facilties is "closed type" - meaning, the personnel never get to touch the materials to be crushed and cooked oil... they all flow in pipes (overhead/underground) and the goods are conveyed (through the same pipeline) from one food processing unit to another.
In this regard, do the production personnel have to follow the hand-washing, protective uniforms, etc. since they never get in contact with the product anyway?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Artemis,
Do you have (minimum) local Regulatory Requirements for a Food processing Unit ? Most countries do.
I will add...........this is a slippery slope............if your facility wants to add a new product you will have an almost impossible task of changing behaviors
I'd expect to see hand washing, some basic protective clothing etc irrespective of regulatory requirements in this type of environment, and if you're working with any customers in the EU then I'd imagine they'll all require similar as part of best practice. It isn't expensive or time-consuming to have basic hair nets / overcoats / beard snood available and wash/sanitizer stations for hands. We have a site running a similar completely enclosed liquid process line and I can guarantee you that we'd lose >99% of our customers overnight if we decided we didn't need to wear basic protective clothing and wash our hands any more!
I'd expect to see hand washing, some basic protective clothing etc irrespective of regulatory requirements in this type of environment, and if you're working with any customers in the EU then I'd imagine they'll all require similar as part of best practice. It isn't expensive or time-consuming to have basic hair nets / overcoats / beard snood available and wash/sanitizer stations for hands. We have a site running a similar completely enclosed liquid process line and I can guarantee you that we'd lose >99% of our customers overnight if we decided we didn't need to wear basic protective clothing and wash our hands any more!
Hi pHruit,
Thks.
i agree a lot of the above may be hygiene 101 for customers(and UK EHOs?) but I was trying to initially go the (but maybe depending on "Earth") soft route.
Dear Artemis,
I agree with Charles. As you are a food producer, your facility is subject to the legal requirements.
In the case of a Food standard (think about BRC, IFS, SQF etc.), you will need to respect its requirements too.
Kind regards,
Gerard Heerkens
Thanks to all for your responses. Much appreciated.