4 replies to this topic

[rgiuliano137]

Need advice, we have an rte room where cheese and salami are packaged together as a cheese and salami sandwich with no bread, the product is RTE, However Senior management wants to open large bags of sauerkraut, expose it to the environment in an RTE room and package the sauerkraut into smaller packages.

 

an auditor friend said not to do it but Management still wants to move forward.

 

what are the risks and ramifications if we bring in sauerkraut into an RTE room?

 

any advice would be helpful.

 

Thank you

[olenazh]

Depends on how many packaging lines you have in rte room, if only one - if you do changeover cleaning, personnel training, etc. However, I don't see any risk of exposing sauerkraut to the environment as soon as you're not packing it on the same line with other products at the same time.  

[rgiuliano137]

olenazh

 

we have 3 packaging lines running an rte meat and cheese item, concerned about packaging sauerkraut at the same time.

[olenazh]

What's your concern? Sauerkraut is not allergenic/toxic/moldy/dusty/etc. product which could be potential risk of contamination when exposed to the environment, I really don't see your point... Smell? But it's not durian or surstromming:)  

[pHruit]

Need advice, we have an rte room where cheese and salami are packaged together as a cheese and salami sandwich with no bread, the product is RTE, However Senior management wants to open large bags of sauerkraut, expose it to the environment in an RTE room and package the sauerkraut into smaller packages.

 

an auditor friend said not to do it but Management still wants to move forward.

 

what are the risks and ramifications if we bring in sauerkraut into an RTE room?

 

any advice would be helpful.

 

Thank you

 

Probably worth getting hold of a spec for the Sauerkraut in question.

It is a product of fermentation by lactic acid bacteria, so I presume the concern is that potentially introducing something that is somewhat microbiologically active into an RTE area may have micro implications for other products.

IIRC a lot of commercially available Sauerkraut has been pasteurised or similar, but it is also available "raw"/"live".

You may also be able to get some info on what bacteria is used for the ferment, and thus also get a rough idea of whether that organism actually poses any sort of risk to salami/cheese.