Room Temperature Monitoring
My company is a surimi-based products manufacturer. After boiling and frying, we will cool our products to under 4ºC. For boiling products (fish ball), the products will be moved from 100ºC water to tank with ice to cool it down. For frying products (fish cake), we will fry it at 90-120ºC and cool it down in a chiller.
Then we will pack them in a packing room with normal room temperature before blast freezing the products. We only have cooling fan there.
However, after audit, we got a NCR saying we do not have packing room temperature monitoring.
This is what auditor wrote = "the room temperature of the packing room was found not monitored. The needs of room temperature monitoring were found not being identified and assessed"
So what should I do? I bought thermometer hygrometer. My friend told me that the temperature of the room need to be safe for the product. But since my products are not yet need to be frozen and already chilled, is it okay if the temperature of the room is only ambient temperature. Kindly help and I tried to find reference but I did not find any.
Hi Amaliaezleen,
If the product should be stored chilled before freezing down to prevent microbial growth, which I expect may be the case from your description - then yes you need to ensure it stays chilled, so yes you need to monitor the room so you can be sure that the product is staying chilled. Does your HACCP plan require the product to be stored chilled?
In terms of degradation, the chemical reaction rates double when the temperature goes up by ~10°C, and the biochemical reactions usually start to grow when the temperature reaches 20°C. I agree with zanorias about the thermal control here.
You are interrupting the chilling cycle by packaging in an ambient temperature space. Your packaging room should be cooled somehow and monitoring it as well
Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is once you've chilled, there should be no appreciable warming of your product
Hi Amaliaezleen,
If the product should be stored chilled before freezing down to prevent microbial growth, which I expect may be the case from your description - then yes you need to ensure it stays chilled, so yes you need to monitor the room so you can be sure that the product is staying chilled. Does your HACCP plan require the product to be stored chilled?
I see. Actually I am new to this company. and I did not think at all about the room temperature of the packing room. There is no requirement in the haccp plan on how the products need to be chilled. the process flow state that the product need to be chilled and then packed. Thank you so much for your reply
You are interrupting the chilling cycle by packaging in an ambient temperature space. Your packaging room should be cooled somehow and monitoring it as well
Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is once you've chilled, there should be no appreciable warming of your product
Thank you so much for your reply.