GMPs in a Shared Kitchen
Hi all,
It's my first post asking for advice not sure if I should have divided up the questions or if they are sufficiently related :hypocrite:
I'm working on SQF certification for a company with a small staff - under 6 people - operating a few shifts per week in a shared kitchen space and I've run into a few issues:
Repair and maintenance is handled by the owner - not only the facility but also the equipment.
Would you address it as a contract service provider and use an agreed upon specification? Is there maybe a better way?
Sanitation/allergen management.
Obviously there is the operational segregation aspect, but what about the sanitation verification?
Would you cover everything with a pre-op inspection?
It's basically impossible to track/verify what has/has not been processed within the facility. Do you think "visually clean" standard is enough for allergen control? Obviously using something like Neogen swabs for every possible allergen before every shift is pretty costly.
Any thoughts about the best way to do this?
Shared toilet facilities - this was broached in a previous thread, but does anyone have experience with this where it is working well? Do you perform a daily pre-op inspection? Do you have some agreement with owner/manager regarding corrective actions?
Any other issues to watch?
It seems to me this is going to lean pretty heavily on a pre-op inspection carried out in each area before every shift. Do you guys agree? Is there some other approach I'm missing?
The reason for this is that you can not just get one entity set up and certified - but must get the whole certified.
That means it is normally the ownership of the facility that is the client, the entire facility and ALL products produced by the various partners are included on the scope of certification.
This also means that each and every partner using the facility must comply with the requirements of the SQF FSMS system.
Can it be done, sure - but the direct client is the owner/operator of the facility and then buy in from every single user through stanardization is mandatory.
We are benchmarking FSSC22000 and so, in our internal audits discovered that in order to ensure batch specific and overall plant safety, we had to incorporate all partners in the program.
If we were sharing, you'd do as we do and ensure pre-batch inspection as well as post.
With the right system in place, you ensure YOUR food safety is met in spite of whoever used the shared kitchen last.
My issue with shared kitchens is allergen treatment, and supply chain tracking. That may become your biggest nightmare.
As I sit here thinking about the idea of a shared kitchen, the nightmare of data points strikes me as insane.
Your food safety is only as safe as your worst employee and the efficiency of your HACCP system.
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