Hi,
We have an oil based sauce that has been getting very high TPC and yeast counts. Our company team, the food safety consultant and the microbiologist at the third party lab have been unable to determine the root cause as of yet.
Background
- sauce is made up of herb and oil paste, more oil , raw cashews, garlic powder, preservatives (200), acids (300, 330), sugar, salt and powdered flavours.
- product is not heated and is mixed in blender, dispensed through volumetric dispenser and packed in plastic trays with a heat seal plastic film on top. Some MAP gases used (I cannot recall the exact amount as I write this). Volumetric dispenser is not used for other products due to the presence of cashews. Equipment is all washed and sanitised after use. It is not fully automated- each step involves labour.
- high TPC and yeast discovered during routine testing. A large range of pathogenic and spoilage organisms were tested for and everything else came back at 0. Previous routine testing of this product had no issues.
- retention sample sent and had similar elevated results.
- cashews, herb and oil paste and garlic powder sent for testing and all came back at 0 or <100 cfu/g.
- I swabbed the hardest to clean part of the volumetric dispenser after cleaning and the results were unacceptable for cleaning, but many decimal places away from the final product TPC and yeast. (It will now be bleached after every use)
- two more production runs have occurred and the final product results for TPC and yeast are still very high. One sample was sent to the lab a week after production and one was sent literally 2 hours after production.
- Further samples sent this week which were taken before packing (to rule out the trays/gas). Results have not been received yet.
We have never seen results like this before and so I wanted to ask if anyone had experienced something like this before? Or if anyone can see a gap we might be missing?
Thank you!