8 replies to this topic

[Sdurbanfarmer]

Hi All,

 

At the citrus packing house I am assisting they have an issue of not wanting to change their batch water daily. I know I know, but they are given the ability use a valid pasteurization process. Because they are already heating the batch water is it feasible to heat up the batch water to the proper temp and time and call it good?

 

Im all about changing the water on the regular but my job is also to provide them options. All the information I am finding is on actual juice  or milk products, and we are dealing with whole ready to eat produce.

[SQFconsultant]

what is product?

[Sdurbanfarmer]

what is product?

 

Citrus including oranges, lemons, grapefruit, kumquats, etc

[Sdurbanfarmer]

My concern as well is that the wash line is not covered, it seems to me they would spend heck of a lot of propane to boil 1300 gal. of water where heat cant be trapped. But here in Southern California water is also at a premium so its kind of a toss up in my head without seeing the hard numbers of how much propane they would need to use to get it up to temp for 30 min.

[SQFconsultant]

I was recently in a plant up in the Bakersfield area that uses solar collectors to heat the water and UV - they only have to trickle water in 24/7 and that is from re-capture.

 

So, have they been doing what they are doing for a long time and have written out risk analysis, etc?

[Sdurbanfarmer]

I was recently in a plant up in the Bakersfield area that uses solar collectors to heat the water and UV - they only have to trickle water in 24/7 and that is from re-capture.

 

So, have they been doing what they are doing for a long time and have written out risk analysis, etc?

Thanks SQFconsultant, yes and no haha. To zoom back a bit, I was brought on to help update their HACCP plan for an upcoming audit and they had a Food Safety person on hand. That person quit before their Primus audit and now I am sifting through all the pieces and finding all the nitty gritties. I was told by the previous person it was daily, their SOP says weekly or sooner, the staff say they have been doing it every 3 days, and of course there is no verification on any of it. And this is their only control point (obviously not in control)

 

As a consultant obviously I can only explain to them why this has to be done in this manner etc. But clearly there is not a strong food safety culture here. I am pushing for the daily, but that could push them under, hence why I am exploring their options.

[Ryan M.]

Are you talking about reusing the wash water to rinse / clean the fruits?  If so, I would be more concerned about overall bio load than pasteurizing to remove pathogens.  More bio load means less effective pasteurization and kill of pathogens.

 

Do they do anything currently to monitor the quality of the water?  COD? BOD? Turbidity? etc?  Anything that would give an indication of overall bioload?  Seems to me you have to prove the process and water change frequency to verify it is not a potential contaminant.

[Sdurbanfarmer]

Are you talking about reusing the wash water to rinse / clean the fruits?  If so, I would be more concerned about overall bio load than pasteurizing to remove pathogens.  More bio load means less effective pasteurization and kill of pathogens.

 

Do they do anything currently to monitor the quality of the water?  COD? BOD? Turbidity? etc?  Anything that would give an indication of overall bioload?  Seems to me you have to prove the process and water change frequency to verify it is not a potential contaminant.

 

I am totally where you are with it, the turbidity would be rather high and as I explained to them this is going to decrease the efficacy of anything you try and do short of what youre trying to avoid which is changing the batch water daily. I think this just confirms for me that trying to monitor and justify bioload and the efficacy of the pasteurization is out the window when other basic monitoring is lacking.

[Ryan M.]

I am totally where you are with it, the turbidity would be rather high and as I explained to them this is going to decrease the efficacy of anything you try and do short of what youre trying to avoid which is changing the batch water daily. I think this just confirms for me that trying to monitor and justify bioload and the efficacy of the pasteurization is out the window when other basic monitoring is lacking.

 

They could filter the water and then pasteurize it provided the filtration is sufficient enough to minimize bioload.  Filtration is pretty easy to setup and not very costly; only downside is the maintenance required for it.