Control of Cleaning Brooms and Mops
Hello,
I am currently in training for the food safety coordinator position here at my company that produces and sells artisan chocolate. Upon investigation I had noticed that within our food safety plan we do not have any SOPs or SSOPs on the cleaning of our brooms and mops. I know that they are being cleaned because I had previously been on my company's cleaning team. However, I am now questioning whether the brooms and mops are being cleaned properly since there is no established way of cleaning them in our food safety plan. My questions include:
What chemicals should/shouldn't be used?
What is a good cleaning procedure for brooms/mops?
How often should they be cleaned?
How often should we test/replace them?
Thank-you in advanced to anyone who takes the time to try and help answer these questions.
Hi, welcome to the forum. Are those brooms/mops for floor cleaning? Check this previous topic:
I always liked using the same chemicals you use to clean the plant for cleaning the mops and brushes. Stops the need for storing a specific cleanser for cleaning your cleaning equipment. Cleaning of a mop can be done in the mop's bucket in your cleaning area. They should be cleaned after each use, to be stored clean and allowed to dry in a sanitary manner. My procedures called for mops and brooms to be replaced when they were visibly worn or stained/soiled. Documenting these practices can be done in your procedures, employees can be trained on them, and your environmental monitoring program can be referenced to showcase the effectiveness of this program.
I've also had plants who include their mop heads and dust mops in the same laundry service that takes the uniform smocks. Your laundry service can provide full HACCP plans for you to keep on file.
Worth noting that I color coded mops and brooms separately for production and storage areas. You get brownie points for ensuring a broom that was used to sweep the docks doesn't end up near your production equipment. This can be done as simply as colored tags/stickers on the handles.
I always liked using the same chemicals you use to clean the plant for cleaning the mops and brushes. Stops the need for storing a specific cleanser for cleaning your cleaning equipment. Cleaning of a mop can be done in the mop's bucket in your cleaning area. They should be cleaned after each use, to be stored clean and allowed to dry in a sanitary manner. My procedures called for mops and brooms to be replaced when they were visibly worn or stained/soiled. Documenting these practices can be done in your procedures, employees can be trained on them, and your environmental monitoring program can be referenced to showcase the effectiveness of this program.
I've also had plants who include their mop heads and dust mops in the same laundry service that takes the uniform smocks. Your laundry service can provide full HACCP plans for you to keep on file.
Worth noting that I color coded mops and brooms separately for production and storage areas. You get brownie points for ensuring a broom that was used to sweep the docks doesn't end up near your production equipment. This can be done as simply as colored tags/stickers on the handles.
We are currently cleaning them by first rinsing them in our wash bay with a hose. Then we use the same cleaner we use to clean the floors to spray on the heads of both the mops and brooms. After that we spray them off with the hose again. Finally we remove as much water as we can from heads then hang them up to dry, head up. I am not so much worried about the brooms as much as I am the mop heads. I know how much of a breading ground a mop head can be for bacteria. Sadly, we do not have a laundry service for our company as we wash our aprons on site with a washer and drier. I have considered the possibility of washing the mop heads this way as well but I am not too keen on the idea of using the same washer and drier we use to wash our aprons for our mop heads which are used for the floors. It sounds like I just need to write up a procedure for this process, which I am currently working on. However, I want to make sure that the procedures contain good and reliable methods. As for your last statement, we do segergate our cleaning tools by color so no worries there.
Hi, welcome to the forum. Are those brooms/mops for floor cleaning? Check this previous topic:
Both the brooms and mops are utilized for cleaning the floors and are color coded to reflect which areas they are being used in (for example: bathroom, kitchen, production, and storage). The topic you have linked mentions soaking the mops for sanitization purposes, pressure washers, squeegees, and washing machines. Are all of these viable options? I believe using pressure washing would risk chemical contamination as well as spread bacteria, let alone moisture.
Just a comment that IMEX the concentration of active reagent, eg OCl-/free Cl2, required for "mops" may need to be considerably higher than used elsewhere for, say, cleaning/sanitising tables.