Glove color code policy
Hello all,
I have a question about glove colors. I have recently started a new role as the Food Safety and Quality Manager for a Coffee Roasting Company in the US. We are SQF certified. We are a very low risk facility, and have no glove color code policy, and use clear gloves for both food handling and sanitation, which has been fine in previous audits. I was asked today if we could also use other colored gloves in our process, for the same purposes, basically mixed blue and clear gloves on the floor, depending on what is available/affordable to purchase at any given time. I can't find anything that specifically mentions this one way or another, but I don't feel like it is best industry practice and I would expect an auditor to ask about the different colored gloves. Does anyone have advice on this, either way? Is mixing glove colors likely to cause us trouble in an audit?
We used different colored gloves at my former facility. Blue for crab products, orange for fish products. THEN came COVID and everything was in short supply and very difficult to obtain. We had to ditch using different colors and the auditor was totally understanding.
We had posters stating what the different colors were for. Auditors liked the different colors for cross contamination. but again, they were understanding with the short supply.
Most places I have traveled to use bluw nitrils and black nitrils for sanitation.
We use the same colour for both production and sanitation=====why? Because those two activities DO NOT happen concurrently
This may be a case of creating an issue when none exist???
Was this an auditor suggestion? If so it is not an auditors relm to make suggestions.
Most places I have traveled to use bluw nitrils and black nitrils for sanitation.
This was not an auditor suggestion. We currently use clear gloves for both food contact and sanitation activities. The company is having difficulties getting affordable, reliable quality gloves and wanted to know if they can use different colors without differentiating them in a color code. Our policy just says disposable gloves will be used. They do not want to implement a color code, because the lack of one has never been raised as a concern by an auditor, and they do not want to have to be beholden to stocking specific colors if they become difficult to source affordable. So clear, blue, or orange gloves could be used for both food contact and non food contact activities. I have not seen anything that forbids this, I am just wondering if having multiple color gloves that do not differentiate things could cause an issue?
My initial thought was that we should either stick to one color, or implement a color code. But, I'm also wondering if I am overthinking things, because my background is from higher risk facilities.
I don't see a point in using different colors for different areas as the gloves are disposable. In my particular situation, more important is COLOR: for instance, in our production all products color's mostly white - so, white or transparent gloves might create possible foreign matter contamination risk as they would be hardly visible if they fall in a product. So, we use blue or black gloves.
An auditors "suggestion" is not enforceable
Just because they would prefer it, does not make it a requirement
This was not an auditor suggestion. We currently use clear gloves for both food contact and sanitation activities. The company is having difficulties getting affordable, reliable quality gloves and wanted to know if they can use different colors without differentiating them in a color code. Our policy just says disposable gloves will be used. They do not want to implement a color code, because the lack of one has never been raised as a concern by an auditor, and they do not want to have to be beholden to stocking specific colors if they become difficult to source affordable. So clear, blue, or orange gloves could be used for both food contact and non food contact activities. I have not seen anything that forbids this, I am just wondering if having multiple color gloves that do not differentiate things could cause an issue?
in your case, based on your procedure, any color glove can be used for any operation. There is no standard stating you need to do anything different.
In our facility we use two colors for our gloves, blue for production and black for sanitation and maintenance. We did this to differentiate staff activities in production areas. We do have all these employees on the floor during production.
Good afternoon all, the end goal if food safety, getting hung up on semantics and affordability is not a valid reason not to do something. Just because at this given moment the activities that are being performed are not a risk to your process doesn't mean that at some point it won't. I have been in the food manufacturing industry for 39 years and over those years we have adopted policies that were not a specific requirement of any regulatory agency simply because it is the right thing to do to protect our customers and our company. We recently updated our color coding policy with language that stated any color other than black for food contact activities specifically because of supply chain issues, our auditor was totally understanding.