wall clearance

hey! so I am aware of the 18" around the walls but we have desks and our sanitation station on the walls in the yellow areas is that okay?  

Hello!

I presume you mean in production.   ^_^

I would that would be OK as long as your desks aren't solid and don't come all the way to the floor. Wall items should be OK also.

Good morning, Lori. There might be specific instructions in your established food safety scheme, but since you are in the US you will also at least need to adhere to 21CFR110 (or 117 I think if you're animal food). Check out the Plant construction and design section.

There isn't much in the way of rules there, but you will want to make sure you meet the requirement for pest (most PCO companies require an inspection perimeter). You also will need to be able to show that you can properly inspect around those areas. 

Be sure to check your food safety scheme for any other specific requirements!

I keep everything off the border throughout the facility, even in the warehouse.   Desks included.  I've had auditors really drill in that it needs to be that way, so as with many things, perhaps it will depend on your inspector?   But yeah, nothing touches our white border....

yeah, I wasn't very specific I'm sorry, so we are food manufacturing we do dry dairy blends; we are also a newish company in a new to us building that we are having to make food production safe.

The alternative would be to segregate the office space into a non-production area. 

I remember walking thru a blending facility while an Auditor and I asked what the 18 inch band of yellow on floor coming out from the walls meant and the QA Supervisor said, Oh, that's the area that must be kept clear of everything so that pest control can get in there, traps can be placed and checked, etc, etc.

So, I asked why the yellow areas had all sorts of stuff on top of them, you know like brooms, eye wash stations, hose racks, desks, etc. and he said, well we don't have the space.

After I marked it up on my report, they decided to start scraping it down to 8 inches.

Some days were more funny than others.