Environmental Monitoring guidance Seafood facility
Hello
I am trying to establish our environmental monitoring program and had a few questions for those more knowledgeable than me.
We are a seafood wholesaler/processing facility. We produce no RTE items and under the BRC decision tree are a low-risk operation. We are pursuing NSF assured supplier as a start to open up doors and moving towards SQF or BRC after we have a good GMP and history established.
One source i found for guidance on a listeria environmental monitoring program says "in most circumstances a LEMP should not extend into raw processing areas as it is assumed these areas are likely contaminated" Should I just keep the L mono testing to zone 3-4? I feel like i'm always going to get presumptive results.
I feel like general ATP swabs are a good idea, but outside of that I'm having problems establishing what pathogenic bacteria to monitor for a wet facility that only produces products intended to be cooked or sold to end customers for cooking... Any help would be great.
On a related note....what the heck kind of measurement is cts/sponge?
Hi souswes,
We operate a low-risk wet fish processing site,
As part of our Listeria Environmental Monitoring Plan (LEMP) we primarily test in zones 2-3 as these pose a greater risk to product contamination, and are more likely to be given less attention that zone 1 by hygiene. In terms of zone 4 we have swabbed areas such as the engineering workshop, and offices located within the factory.
We test drains biannually and conduct a larger LEMP study annually across the site annually unless detected within a product, in that case a wider investigation and sampling exercise is undertaken.
Listeria spp. is our greatest concern in the environment, as well as Staphylococcus aureus on personnel.
Other pathogens we monitor within product are dependant on our risk assessment and currently include Salmonella spp., Bacillus cereus, E coli, Vibrio spp., and Staphylococcus aureus.
So far our retailers and BRCGS have had no issue with our microbial monitoring.
Thanks very much for that info!
Super helpful to know what a BRCGS facility is doing as I watch webinars and consult with science friends.
You're a rock star!