ATP meter testing of food contact surfaces

Hi,

Does anyone use the ATP meter and do test for food contact surfaces. 

If so can you please let me know how effective it is.

Im referring to the hygiena unit.

Thank you  

We use the Hygenia unit at our facility.  it is part of our pre-op inspection in the mornings.  I like the unit itself for a preliminary detection.  for deep down investigation we utilize our EMP to get a better understanding.  But for cleanliness it's not bad, it will pick up a sanitizer for false reads which has happened to me in the past.

Hi Francis,

I use the Hygiena SystemSure Plus for ATP swabbing during pre-production hygiene inspections, alongside EMP lab tested swabs. I find it's effective for a general cleanliness indication and the good thing is on-the-spot results - no waiting days for incubation or lab certs. The unit itself and the SureTrend software are very user friendly.

Hi there,

I used it before as it is an efficient way to tell if sanitation was done properly and follow up with correction. You can make it as part of pre-op or post op, along of-course with your EMP. 

Just to add on sanitiser, I'm sure I'd read before that Hygiena recommend ATP swabbing before sanitiser is applied - see attached Hygiena doc on this and sanitiser effects on ATP swabbing. Not always practicable of course especially during night cleaning operations.

p.s. the amount of times I've had to explain to staff that if something fails ATP test and needs re-cleaning they can't just drench it in sanitiser and "kill" the ATP :closedeyes:

Just to add on sanitiser, I'm sure I'd read before that Hygiena recommend ATP swabbing before sanitiser is applied - see attached Hygiena doc on this and sanitiser effects on ATP swabbing. Not always practicable of course especially during night cleaning operations.

 

p.s. the amount of times I've had to explain to staff that if something fails ATP test and needs re-cleaning they can't just drench it in sanitiser and "kill" the ATP :closedeyes:

This is correct. When we first implemented Hygiena swabs into our process, I couldn't figure out why the results were coming out so strangely. After contacting Hygiena, they were able to tell me that the swabs we were using were sensitive to the sanitizer. We now use the Supersnaps due to this being far less sensitive to sanitizer. The Supersnaps work very well for us. 

Hygiena is pretty nice because you get the SureTrend program, which you can use to analyze your data for trending purposes (along with programming the unit).

ATP swabs are fine, but I always employ ATP with a visual inspection. One thing to note is that ATP swabs don't work well for visible dirt (which obviously your visual inspection would catch), given the luminometer's light sensitivity. 

Also, if checking for allergens, I employ ATP along with the allergen swabs particular to the protein in question (along with visual inspection).