Risk Assessment for Sugar & Flour Sifters

Hello Everyone,

This question relates to anyone in the snacks/baking (cookies/crackers) industry.

In a recent customer audit that took place at one of our facilities, the auditor issued a MAJOR non-conformance for not having a risk assessment completed for using the following screen sizes: 20 and 30 mesh for sugar and flour sifters respectively. This is something that has been used at the facility for more than 30 years, way before my time with the organization. Following is the question:

If filters and sieves are used for foreign body control, are they of specified mesh size or gauge and designed to provide the maximum practical protection for the product based on risk assessment? 

I would be happy to hear from anyone who may have any comments or suggestions around this topic.

Thank-you. 

Hi fozzy,

to my understanding the auditor's question is if the mesh size was defined according to the size of foreign bodies which can occur. 

So in this case, the question is if there can also be foreign bodies which are below the specified size and could possibly contaminate the product.

Regards,

Christian

So you don't you have metal detectors/x-ray/magnet and use sifters to control foreign matter instead?

Sounds like you have a specified size to control a hazard, the auditor is asking if you know why those sizes were picked in the first place.

AKA, has the mesh size been "validated" to ensure that under working conditions it controls the hazard.

Most likely this is going to be based on some sort of industry standard, and since you're baking, I assume FB control is already controlled upstream by your flour supplier. So your foreign materials will be things like paper scraps from opening the bags.

Honestly. unless you have a history of these screens saving your products from foreign material, it may just be something you use as a quality control to sift the flour rather than a FS control. If it is for FS, see if you can find an industry validation. If it isn't get it out of your documentation so that there isn't an expectation of validation.

Thank-you to everyone who responded. 

@Christian, I hope to make it a bit clearer below.

@Food Scientist, yes we do have magnets in line with metal and x-ray detectors in packaging designated as CCPs.

@FurFarmandFork, you are absolutely correct when saying: the auditor is asking why those sizes have been chosen in the first place, followed by validation. I am trying to find out if there is any industry validation that was performed so that I may use that but I have not had much luck with finding anything. As for getting it out of the documentation, that is what I am trying to do right now. However, that said, the issues we have with foreign materials actually has nothing to do with the flour and sugar sifters. Our issues are deriving from cutting the bags, plastic from bags again among some of the issues.

In all honesty I am at a loss. I have gone through a lot of audits in my time and this has never been challenged or asked of. I am still hopefull to find something in the industry.

Thanks all for your help.

Thank-you to everyone who responded. 

 

@Christian, I hope to make it a bit clearer below.

 

@Food Scientist, yes we do have magnets in line with metal and x-ray detectors in packaging designated as CCPs.

 

@FurFarmandFork, you are absolutely correct when saying: the auditor is asking why those sizes have been chosen in the first place, followed by validation. I am trying to find out if there is any industry validation that was performed so that I may use that but I have not had much luck with finding anything. As for getting it out of the documentation, that is what I am trying to do right now. However, that said, the issues we have with foreign materials actually has nothing to do with the flour and sugar sifters. Our issues are deriving from cutting the bags, plastic from bags again among some of the issues.

 

In all honesty I am at a loss. I have gone through a lot of audits in my time and this has never been challenged or asked of. I am still hopefull to find something in the industry.

 

Thanks all for your help.

Hi fozzy,

FWIW, the basis of a possible procedure for Validation of a sieve's effectiveness (using a following metal detector) is given in attached.document. May be necessary to adjust the numeric values.

Codex 2008 guidelines for validation of FS control measures.pdf   206.81KB   88 downloads

(Pg 13)