Do food manufacturers sterilize the food packaging prior to use?
Hello, my staff (from Sales to Shipping) have been lead to believe that the food manufacturers are sterilizing almost all of the food packaging prior to use. I have been told otherwise, which the purpose of HACCP and GMPs in our facility. We do processing with direct contact food packaging. I am hearing it so often and from so many sources, I am wondering if there is actually any truth to this. Do food manufacturers sterilize the food packaging prior to use and if so, does everyone or just some? Thank you, Sara
If you are hearing this from so many sources, why not ask your sources if it is true and why they are doing it.
Sorry, to be blunt - but that is where I'd go first.
In secondary response - I know of no packaging nor food packager that sanitizes their packaging - with the exception of hot steam blowout of bottles and jars, really not meant to sanitize but to get any particles out prior to filling.
Hi Sara, welcome to our Forum! The only thing I could think would be re-usable glass bottles or jars. We use plastic bottles & cups to pack our our products, and we've never sterilized them. My other customer, ice cream manufacturer, uses plastic pails/cups - the same idea, no sterilization.
Thank you for the replies!
It depends on the packaging material and the application. For sensitive products that have a long shelf-life the packaging will likely be sanitized or sterilized. I've been a quality manager at an extended shelf-life dairy / beverage manufacturer and we sterilized our packaging just prior to filling done at the filler in a HEPA environment. This is also normal for aseptic filling processes as any bit of potential contamination on the package will affect the shelf-life severely during ambient storage.
The other process where sanitizing is used is caps in beverage applications. The capping equipment and process is generally not "as clean" as the filling equipment itself so many processes will sanitize their caps just prior to application with a sanitize chemical, ozone, or even UV.
MOST processes and facilities DO NOT sanitize or sterilize packaging.
I appreciate you all taking the time to respond to me. I always assume direct contact is direct contact, however, I have been wrong before! The source of this belief may have been from one of our product lines being a dairy and that may have spread through to the rest.
Thanks again!
Hi Ryan. I was searching through the forum and found your response. I am looking into various co-manufacturers for a soda (glass bottle) and none clean their caps before application. I am starting to think it must be industry practice, at least for small plants. The product is cold-filled, high acid, carbonated, and contains preservatives. Since there’s no heat step, I’d prefer a facility that cleans the caps—but perhaps the preservatives and other factors make it less of a concern. Any insights would be appreciated.
Thank you.
It depends on the packaging material and the application. For sensitive products that have a long shelf-life the packaging will likely be sanitized or sterilized. I've been a quality manager at an extended shelf-life dairy / beverage manufacturer and we sterilized our packaging just prior to filling done at the filler in a HEPA environment. This is also normal for aseptic filling processes as any bit of potential contamination on the package will affect the shelf-life severely during ambient storage.
The other process where sanitizing is used is caps in beverage applications. The capping equipment and process is generally not "as clean" as the filling equipment itself so many processes will sanitize their caps just prior to application with a sanitize chemical, ozone, or even UV.
MOST processes and facilities DO NOT sanitize or sterilize packaging.
Hi Ryan. I was searching through the forum and found your response. I am looking into various co-manufacturers for a soda (glass bottle) and none clean their caps before application. I am starting to think it must be industry practice, at least for small plants. The product is cold-filled, high acid, carbonated, and contains preservatives. Since there’s no heat step, I’d prefer a facility that cleans the caps—but perhaps the preservatives and other factors make it less of a concern. Any insights would be appreciated.
Thank you.
*Alert Zombie thread!!!*
The acidity bit is important in my view. There are some high acid applications where cap sterilisation will not be as important. Carbonation also is a hurdle factor to microbiological (mostly yeast and mould) growth and it also contains preservatives. It sounds like the product is very low risk to me and so I'd suspect cap sterilisation is not required. Of course, common sense and keeping them covered before use would be sensible.
To come at it another way, a literature search or advice from an authoritative body might be helpful about what pH the yeasts and moulds which concern you would grow? There may be an industry body for drinks in the US with information like this for you.
Like the reply above, I've only ever worked with or seen packaging disinfection / sterilisation with H2O2 or PAA in aseptic operations. Often these are for ambient items with moderately low pH or closer to neutral pH. If I'm honest, having seen a few plants now with these kind of applications? They slightly terrify me. There's so much more that could go wrong and I have had foods or drinks packed in this kind of plant with mould. They go wrong more than you'd think because mostly people don't follow all the steps and sometimes they can be circumvented. I'm far more of a fan of pasteurisation in bottle or can where that's possible but not always possible with PET etc. It's probably because I was "brought up" with traditional high care / high risk manufacturing where some of what aseptic processing does is just "muddier" for my liking. Also there are H&S risks of using PAA or hydrogen peroxide so I'd avoid if you can.
Thank you GMO!
Yes we do, U.V. for sterilization of our cans even though we sterilize the whole canned good again.
Yes we do, U.V. for sterilization of our cans even though we sterilize the whole canned good again.
Why? Would you run if it broke down?
Why? Would you run if it broke down?
There is continuous documented monitoring of the lamp. If the lamp breaks down the control room has an alert. Also, the glass wont affect as it there is a casing and lastly we have spare lights to start the production asap.
There is continuous documented monitoring of the lamp. If the lamp breaks down the control room has an alert. Also, the glass wont affect as it there is a casing and lastly we have spare lights to start the production asap.
How have you validated it's necessary? Not saying it's not, it's just not something I have come across.
How have you validated it's necessary? Not saying it's not, it's just not something I have come across.
Yes it was validated way before i joined. Also it was an OPRP because of high waiting time on the retorts since we had only two. Now its just an additional measure since some of our cans come from different suppliers.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding this but...
Why is the waiting time a concern if your retorts are effective?
Why is it a significant hazard because your cans come from different suppliers when you have a retort later in the process?
Are you 100% certain that there's not a micrometre that the lamp doesn't reach on the can surface?
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding this but...
Why is the waiting time a concern if your retorts are effective?
Why is it a significant hazard because your cans come from different suppliers when you have a retort later in the process?
Are you 100% certain that there's not a micrometre that the lamp doesn't reach on the can surface?
It can lead to development of toxins if held for a long time and retort might target the organism but not the toxin so for a safe measure we used to pasteruize the product as well as sterilize the cans.
About the certainty we do swab testing of cans post UV sterilization.
This was the case many years ago what we are currently discussing. Now we have enough retorts and this UV sterilization is an additional measure.
Also, like the way you ask in depth questions, I get to learn a lot and would love connect with you personally.
Sorry... I can't help it....
Which toxins?
Swabbing doesn't answer my question... Sorry I'm also an auditor... The reason I asked about any shadowing is because UV is great but the tiniest shadow and where the area is shadowed it simply doesn't work at all. A swab will only detect it hasn't worked if there was a vegetative organism there before being exposed to the UV. Does that make sense?
Sorry... I can't help it....
Which toxins?
Swabbing doesn't answer my question... Sorry I'm also an auditor... The reason I asked about any shadowing is because UV is great but the tiniest shadow and where the area is shadowed it simply doesn't work at all. A swab will only detect it hasn't worked if there was a vegetative organism there before being exposed to the UV. Does that make sense?
shadowing is prevented by rotation in the chamber as well as tubes are angled perfectly. Swab is done for environmental monitoring by external labs which covers TPC , Clostridium spp, staph and bacillus.
Also toxins , C bot.
What are the chemical properties of your product? Is your pH below 4?