4 replies to this topic

[crystalQC]

Hello everyone, our facility these past years has mostly been only a distributer and basic repackaging of pre-packaged, RTE foods into our custom packaging. Very low risk for allergens and no one actually handling open food or product. We are now adding a pre-built gingerbread house and for the first time in our facility, are actually handling food outside of the pre-packaged stuff we were used to. For context (if it helps) it will basically consist of another assembly line of our workers handling cookie panels and squeezing icing mix from a machine to assemble them, then the cookie houses will sit overnight to dry and set.  Both our icing and gingerbread cookie contain FDA top 8 allergens. My questions are: Do we need to build an enclosed area for this line? Would there need to be additional allergen testing like airborne - since we are handling open product now? If anyone has a similar scope and would like to share their CCP procedures, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you

[SQFconsultant]

I have a client with similar circumstance in that they were simply taking apart large cases of food products and building gift baskets but never actually touching food product directly and then they were asked to begin making Ginger bread and other type items.

 

They developed an entirely new manufacturing food safety management system which if course included all the needed allergen related items and they ran this operation in a clean room.

[MaggieB]

My facility is mainly a distributer. But we also repack dried fruit and nuts from bulk packaging into our private label. We have a single room that is dedicated to this process. Because it is an exposed product handling area and used for allergen production we require anyone entering the room to wear a hair net, disposable lab coat and shoe covers. These must be removed when exiting the room, to prevent any allergen tracking around the rest of the facility. We have keep allergens segregated to specific tables and verify with allergen protein swabs if there is a change to the allergen profile of a table. We do not do any airborne testing.

[crystalQC]

Thank you Glenn! Always appreciate your responses. 

 

 

I have a client with similar circumstance in that they were simply taking apart large cases of food products and building gift baskets but never actually touching food product directly and then they were asked to begin making Ginger bread and other type items.

 

They developed an entirely new manufacturing food safety management system which if course included all the needed allergen related items and they ran this operation in a clean room.

[crystalQC]

Thank you Maggie! This is also the thought process I was having - we don't have separate rooms but can start to invest in setting some up. Just wanted to confirm what others have done. This helps a lot. 

 

My facility is mainly a distributer. But we also repack dried fruit and nuts from bulk packaging into our private label. We have a single room that is dedicated to this process. Because it is an exposed product handling area and used for allergen production we require anyone entering the room to wear a hair net, disposable lab coat and shoe covers. These must be removed when exiting the room, to prevent any allergen tracking around the rest of the facility. We have keep allergens segregated to specific tables and verify with allergen protein swabs if there is a change to the allergen profile of a table. We do not do any airborne testing.