Soap & Sanitize Dispensers - Touch vs no touch
Hello all,
We are SQF certified and currently have manual soap and sanitize dispensers in our facility which we buy bulk soap and sanitizer to refill. I recently looked into getting touch-less units to replace our current units and upon doing so, a vendor I reached out to said he has thought and noticed that everyone that is SQF is switching to touch-less. Now, I know no where in the standard it says specifically you need to use touch-less but it is a choice to do so anyways? Our facility has been audited for 5+ years against the SQF code and it was never brought up by any auditor. Just looking for other opinions and comments while we look at this change.
Thank you all!
Hello!
Our facility is also SQF Certified and we use manual soap/sanitizer dispensers. We manufacture low risk vegetable products; therefore, we do not need to invest in touch-less dispensers. Your vendor may be right (as I do not have those stats) that facilities are moving towards touch-less dispensers due to cleanliness, modern appeal and other benefits... but you are also right in that they are not an SQF requirement.
I believe it is a facility dependent choice focusing on risk. You are not wrong for choosing manual dispensers if the risk of using them is low in your facility. :)
Mark
This is the exact response I was hoping to get! We are a low risk facility, packaging RTE dry snack foods (some are not exposed at all). It is a very large cost to switch to touch-less and although they are nice, it's not something I want to spend our money on if I don't have to.
Thanks for the input!!
Hello all,
We are SQF certified and currently have manual soap and sanitize dispensers in our facility which we buy bulk soap and sanitizer to refill. I recently looked into getting touch-less units to replace our current units and upon doing so, a vendor I reached out to said he has thought and noticed that everyone that is SQF is switching to touch-less. Now, I know no where in the standard it says specifically you need to use touch-less but it is a choice to do so anyways? Our facility has been audited for 5+ years against the SQF code and it was never brought up by any auditor. Just looking for other opinions and comments while we look at this change.
Thank you all!
If you have high risk areas and fall under Module 11 - this is the requirement for hands free
11.3.2.3 The following additional facilities shall be provided in high risk areas: i. Hands free operated taps; and ii. Hand sanitizers.
Now, in the event you do have high risk areas, it just means that your auditor has missed it - but that doesn't mean you are off the hook.
And yes, I agree with the provider of sinks - the trend is moving away from touch to no touch, most of our clients are no touch and about 1/2 are low risk.
If you have high risk areas and fall under Module 11 - this is the requirement for hands free
11.3.2.3 The following additional facilities shall be provided in high risk areas: i. Hands free operated taps; and ii. Hand sanitizers.
Now, in the event you do have high risk areas, it just means that your auditor has missed it - but that doesn't mean you are off the hook.
And yes, I agree with the provider of sinks - the trend is moving away from touch to no touch, most of our clients are no touch and about 1/2 are low risk.
Thank you for the information. We do have hands free taps throughout the facility, just not hands free soap and sanitizer units. I suppose we could at least go hands free with our dispensers inside the processing rooms as a step in that direction. And yes, we follow module 11 but I wouldn't consider our process high risk. Again, like you said, still doesn't hurt to move in that direction anyways!
Thank you for the information. We do have hands free taps throughout the facility, just not hands free soap and sanitizer units. I suppose we could at least go hands free with our dispensers inside the processing rooms as a step in that direction. And yes, we follow module 11 but I wouldn't consider our process high risk. Again, like you said, still doesn't hurt to move in that direction anyways!
Most of our clients have sensor dispensers installed either with infrared wall panes or built into the dispensor and battery operated or solar.
My question on this whole thing is: If you require touch free soap dispensers, touch free taps and paper towels would be absolutely necessary. If you dispense soap you are (theoretically) about to properly wash your hands. If the soap dispenser is "contaminated" big deal, you're about to wash your hands. What gets me is you wash your hands then touch a potentially contaminated tap handle or paper towel dispenser immediately after, unless all employees wash, get paper towel, dry hands then turn off tap with paper towel then discard paper towel and how often does that happen?
I think this varies with the different food processing areas within the facility....