10 replies to this topic

[The Food Scientist]

Hello everyone and wishing you all a happy new year!

 

 

We bottle juice in our facility and our three CCPs are pasteurization, strainer (Physical hazards) and a magnet (magnetic physical hazards). 

 

When I came on board the HACCP plan was already made to have all these 3 CCPs and no CPs. 

 

However with time, and after reading a lot of other people's HACCP plans I came to notice a few things. I would like to know how everyone here who runs a similar production has in regards to the Foreign material physical hazards:

 

- The strainers are in place right before product is bottled. After we finish running product, we check the strainer, if it has FM, then the product goes on hold. we do an evaluation and rework product (mind you we pass it through more strainers as we rework and look for more). 

- The magnets are in place right before product is bottled. And after we finish running product, we check the magnet, if it has metal, then the product goes on hold. we e do an evaluation and rework product (mind you we pass it through more magnets (CPs) as we rework and look for more). 

 

these two devices are basically used as "removal" devices, and their function is to "remove" FM, the monitoring is to make sure they are intact, clean and installed properly. 

 

what is not making sense to me is why are we needing to hold product and rework it if we find something on these devices, doesnt it mean they did their job? because every time we rework, we never find any metal or foreign material and to me its almost like a waste of money. if we are verifying and validating these devices are functional, why are we worried about them not catching all the FM? 

 

I would like to hear everyone's stance on this! I have a HACCP meeting coming soon with team and would like to beforehand know what everyone is doing,.

[G M]

You describe both the sieve and magnet as being "right before" bottling, are they done simultaneously or is one of them after the other?  Part of the technical definition of a CCP is that it is the last step at which the hazard is controlled.

 

They may both be important to your process (for example the magnet could be protecting the fine sieve from large material that could damage it), but it seems likely only one of them is the critical control point for physical hazards.

[kingstudruler1]

My opinion is that if the findings and evaluation do not indicate a foreign material risk, I probably would not rework / destroy product. 

 

For example, if I found on odd ball piece of metal that there is no known source for - Id let it go.  If you find a  bunch of metal and determine a equipment failure, etc.  that product may need to be held / reworked / destroyed.   

 

I do believe that if the findings from a magnet or metal detector, etc indicate a failure of some kind that the product may still be at risk.  I do not  believe them to be 100% effective.  (maybe if your strainer is super fine, I dont know)

 

The tricky part of this is determining what constitutes a risk and what does not.  It can get gray sometimes.    

[MOHAMMED ZAMEERUDDIN]

If the magnet is catching the metal then no need to rework the batch.

[Utama]

In my opinion, as long as you are already verifying, validating, and calibrating these devices, they are functional, and you also have the evidence documented.

There is no need to rework.

 

In my company, we also use the magnet trap, but it does not CCP because we have a metal detector at the end of the process.

So even if there is a FM on our magnet trap, we can assume our product is safe if there is no alarm when passing the metal detector.

 

may i know, is your magnet filter position is after the strainer or before the strainer?

 

Best Regards

[The Food Scientist]

to everyone asking:

 

Our strainers are before the magnets.

[AnnaAnka]

What kind of actions do you do during production to verify that the magnet and the sieve/strainer is working?

[The Food Scientist]

What kind of actions do you do during production to verify that the magnet and the sieve/strainer is working?

 

that it is in good, clean condition and installed properly.

[kingstudruler1]

that it is in good, clean condition and installed properly.

 

How do you validate that they are effective?   I think that is where i struggle the most with these two items.   I've seen validations procedures I that don't think adequately scientifically prove their effectiveness.  

 

For instance,  if a strainer or screen is much bigger than 20 or40 mesh you could get hazardous pieces that are long and narrow through it.   Most people conduct strength tests on the magnets as validation.   However,  magnet effectiveness is very dependent on how they are installed and how product is introduced to them.  (distance in between magnets, product distance from magnets/ product depth, flow rates, etc).   

[The Food Scientist]

How do you validate that they are effective?   I think that is where i struggle the most with these two items.   I've seen validations procedures I that don't think adequately scientifically prove their effectiveness.  

 

For instance,  if a strainer or screen is much bigger than 20 or40 mesh you could get hazardous pieces that are long and narrow through it.   Most people conduct strength tests on the magnets as validation.   However,  magnet effectiveness is very dependent on how they are installed and how product is introduced to them.  (distance in between magnets, product distance from magnets/ product depth, flow rates, etc).   

 

For magnets we do a magnet pull test.

 

for strainer we do this beads test where you pass a certain diameter of beads through

[AnnaAnka]

For magnets we do a magnet pull test.

 

for strainer we do this beads test where you pass a certain diameter of beads through

I don't have any experience with magnets, only strainers, but for strainers we did a verification test with a certain interval during production, so in that way we were able to minimize the amount of product we had to run through the strainer again. 

 

We took out a sample of finished product and put it through a strainer with the same mesh size as the one on the production line (as stated - at certain intervals during production). If this test showed no residue in the "test strainer" we could assume that the strainer on the production line was working as intended, and production could run as normal. If anything was caught in the "test strainer" we needed to do more investigation - stop the line, and check if the strainer on the line was damaged. 

In addition, the strainer was also visually checked for damage before and after production. 

 

I don't think that finding FM in the strainer on your production line should trigger rework - this only shows that your device is working as intended?