Hello! This is my first post and I apologize if I am in the wrong forum, I just wasn't sure where else to post this!
I have been in food safety management for my entire career and just started at a new startup company (in the US) that has a parent company overseas. The parent company uses propane forklifts in their warehouse and production areas so of course they ordered the same type for this facility prior to my arrival. I have advised our owner of the risks and he is admit that we are to continue using them because they do so overseas, so what is acceptable over there is acceptable here in his mind. I have reached out several times to their QA team to see what risk analysis was performed and any testing they may have done to prove there is no risk of cross contamination but I have heard nothing but crickets!
Every facility I have worked for uses battery operated, as do all of my colleagues from other facilities.
I am in the process of getting our facility BRC certified so we have not had an auditor on site yet to smack us on the hand for using which I would like to prevent from happening.
Does anyone have experience justifying the use of these in production environments? I would love to be able to say that the propane operated forklifts we use do not omit any fumes but they stink at times! We do have a very large open warehouse and production room and our owner is saying that is why we are allowed to use them but I would like to be able to test for something to prove this... I just don't know what to test for! I have sent excerpts from the CFR to try to help communicate why we shouldn't use them but it didn't help!
Thank you in advance for any advice!