Have you ever tried ATP swabbing equipment after a production run prior to sanitation? I'd be curious what RLU's look like before and after, and with my lack of experience in packaging manufacturing, I'm imagining they'd be negligible. Perhaps building a study where you've recorded many pre-clean and post-clean results for comparison, along with notable observations that there isn't visual residue building up during the process, combined with sanitation validations that show pre/post wash control of indicator organisms could be sufficient to justify a visual cleanliness standard.
I feel like you're kind of stuck in the fact ATP is a part of your current program, and you'll need to justify your way out of it. It's doable, as I worked in a dry spice plant where we got by on visual inspections for cleanliness during dry cleanings. If you can get to a visual level of cleaning verification being acceptable, you'll still want to document the visual inspection after each cleaning on your sanitation records.
Edited by jfrey123, 20 October 2023 - 05:23 PM.