Do we need to clean beverage cans before filling?

Hello everyone, I work in a beverage industry, making and packing Kombucha. We installed a new can packing line. For food safety prospective, do we need to clean the cans before filling them with beverages. We receive the cans covered from the supplier and  we feed them to the filling line on a conveyer that is covered from the top to avoid any contamination. Please advise if we need to wash or rinse the cans before filling. Thanks 

We do the same: plastic cups and lids are dispensed to the filling machine. Cups & lids come covered with plastic liners. Never cleaned them. No issue with anybody.

Do they come 'sanitized' from the manufacturer? I think if you have that kind of documentation, you should be OK.

I personally would never count on 'it's never been a problem before...'

Hello Everyone ,

 

I work in a beverage industry, making and packing Kombucha. 

 

We installed a new can packing line. For food safety prospective, do we need to clean the cans before filling them with beverages.

 

We receive the cans covered from the supplier and  we feed them to the filling line on a conveyer that is covered from the top to avoid

 

any contamination .

 

please advise if we need to wash or rinse the cans before filling .

 

Thanks 

I worked in a sauces industry where we put hot liquid products into plastic and glass jars.  All of them were inverted prior to filling, there was not a concern for micro contaminants as long as they were accompanied with an LOG etc.  I would think your biggest risk would be foreign material from initial manufacturer- broken pieces of can, shavings etc. I would see if you can possibly invert prior to filling.

Some standards have their own requirements. For example, AIB 1.24 all deals with cans, bottles, and rigid packaging (I must still be 13 because I giggled when I seen rigid package).

They have a whole list of critical requirements, for example:

Most beverage lines use food grade compressed air to blow out cans prior to filling

when I was in pickles---the glass jars were rinsed prior to filling

it's a foreign material concern, but with kombucha I would be concerned about the introduction of yeast/molds

I worked in kombucha and it depends on who you are selling to. We had specific buyers who did not care if we had documentation that the bottles or cans were cleaned prior. They wanted to make sure that we were doing our due diligence and not relying on what other people are telling/ giving us. When we upgraded our equipment we included a blow out area where all bottles were blown out with compressed air then placed on the line. I have also started to see a shift in the bigger retailers asking for this. 

I work in beverage bottling as well and the first mechanism in our filler is a bottle grabber that will take the bottles from the conveyor, invert them, and rinse them with a steam of clean water to limit the risk of any possible contamination from foreign material. How confident are you in the sterility of your suppliers' bottles? Are they plastic? aluminum? 

How confident are you with your can manufacturer? Have you audited them and reviewed their process specifically for foreign matter control? Risks from microbial contamination should be minimal. You can risk assess and monitor microbial loads if your can vendor is not already doing this.

How long are your cans kept in storage, both at the manufacturer and your own site? Doesn't matter how well wrapped a pallet is, insects and other vermin are notorious for getting into packaging no matter how good your pest control is. As others have noted, invert and air rinse prior to filling is the right way to go.

There would be nothing worse than having a customer complaint from someone finding foreign matter in their drink, especially if its an insect.