4 replies to this topic

[Gshurtleff]

Hello All,

 

We're a honey bottling facility. 

 

We are making a new employee entrance that goes from the outside and connects with the area where we process the honey. Does there need to be a door from the inside of the employee entrance room into the honey processing WHS? There are going to be their lockers in this entrance room/hall, as well as hand washing station, PPE, etc.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Respectfully,

 

Graham

[Scampi]

Yes

 

That area becomes part of your pest control, dust control as well as allergen separation

 

Install a second interior door

[Gshurtleff]

Thank you Scampi!

 

Is there somewhere that it says there needs to be a separation between the 2 areas in SQF edition 9 Handbook?? So I can go to my superior with irrefutable data?

[jfrey123]

I can't find a specific SQF code that requires an airlock or second door between an exterior entrance to a processing area.  Closest I can find is 11.4:

 

11.4 Personnel Processing Practices

11.4.1 Staff Engaged in Food Handling and Processing Operations

11.4.1.1 All personnel engaged in any food handling, preparation, or processing operations shall ensure that products and materials are handled and stored in such a way as to prevent damage or product contamination. They shall comply with the following processing practices:

i. Personnel entry to processing areas shall be through the personnel access doors only;

ii. All doors are to be kept closed. Doors shall not be open for extended periods when access is required for waste removal or receiving of product/ingredient/packaging;

iii. Packaging, product, and ingredients shall be kept in appropriate containers as required and off the floor;

iv. Waste shall be contained in the bins identified for this purpose and removed from the processing area on a regular basis and not left to accumulate; and

v. All wash down and compressed air hoses shall be stored on hose racks after use and not left on the floor

 

 

A second door is definitely preferable, but I've consulted with businesses that did not have a second door after the entrance and they passed SQF audits.  In their case, the door opened into a warehouse where a processing area was about 50 feet from the door.  The building was a large storage warehouse with a small processing area partitioned off with curtains from floor to ceiling.  They installed a handwash station and lockers for smocks directly inside the entrance, and that appeased the auditors in this case.  Product was a low risk non-RTE product, which probably makes a difference, in addition to the way they segregated the processing area.  It was designed to protect processing from the storage area, but was deemed effective enough in their case.

[Brothbro]

Yes, you should not have staff putting on smocks or rummaging through personal items (lockers) directly on the processing room floor. Those activities should be kept to a segregated room. Even if you did your best to justify it, without this important separation you would notice tons of mud/dust getting tracked in to your processing floor. It would be a very real problem for facility sanitation.

 

I too have worked in an SQF facility that did not have this kind of separation for every processing entrance, but for them these single-door entrances were in low risk areas of the plant. Same as jfrey123, these were the lowest risk areas of the plant where processing was done far away. No exposed food was kept in these areas. It's still not ideal, but those are the scenarios where this sort of this is accepted by auditors (no NCs). Personally I would still give it a shot at justifying a partition getting built in these circumstances.

Edited by Brothbro, 30 March 2023 - 04:13 PM.