Hairnets and Beard Snoods
Okay, So we are a company that produces netting and film labels to send to packaging warehouses. Food is never packaged at our plant. Do we still need hairnets>? Are there some tests we could conduct to not have to wear them?
BRC/IoP 6.5.6:
In production and packing areas, hazard and risk analysis shall be used to determine the need for:
- snoods for beards and moustaches
- scalp hair coverings.
A person normally sheds about 120 hairs per day, or 5 per hour.
IMO, you can quantify or estimate the chance of hair contamination to decide, by working time and exposure status.
1. Yes
2. NO
on 2 - you could run a risk analysis to see if you could forego both nets by looking at your customer complaints / comments and your own in house samping programs to see if hair has ever been an issue.
I say NO to question 2 because even though we had clients with a similar situation and both run risk analysis's both still took a hit by auditors.
If food touches the products you make then yes unless your machinery is adequate to provide a controlled enough environment to reduce the possibility of biological contamination. Ergo the aforementioned Risk analysis would bear this out.