We routinely covered equipment, or at least the feed hoppers into various systems, in my spice plant after sanitation once the equipment was dry. We would normally use the food grade poly drum liners we used for processing WIP materials (almost all of our WIP went into fiber drums with the poly bags inside). Eventually it led to an SQF auditor asking why we felt it was necessary, our reasoning being that we just wanted to protect the cleaned surfaces from any possible intrusions. But she used our practice of covering equipment to deep dive into our dust management systems (milling/blending spices is dusty), and more heavily scrutinized our EM program (specifically air monitoring). Her logic was if our dust control was truly sufficient, and our air monitoring was really as in control as our records showed, then covering the equipment was unnecessary so therefore we must not be as clean as we appear on paper.
We stuck to our procedure, that we felt a cheap poly bag over the entry point of our processing lines or equipment in general was just an extra safeguard against anything we couldn't foresee. Sometimes we would idle a milling line for a month at a time waiting for orders, and the idea of letting that hopper into a clean grinder or screw conveyer remain open to the atmosphere just seemed like a bad idea to us (and of course we had startup inspections specific to equipment that hasn't been run in awhile). So in my experience, yes, you can cover your equipment after cleaning, but just be prepared for someone to question why you feel it is necessary.
Edited by jfrey123, 05 June 2023 - 04:06 PM.
