APT Testing Requirements: Frequency and When It’s Applicable

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR APT TESTING.  HOW MANY TESTS SHOULD WE BE DOING AND HOW OFTEN.  WE DON'T HAVE ANY CCP'S THAT THIS WOULD BE RELEVENT FOR SO I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THIS ONE.

Did you mean ATP testing or is APT something different that I'm not aware of. Double checking because there are a lot of acronyms I don't know.  

We would need more information to really be helpful.

What kind of product are you making?

What's the environment?

Is it high-risk/high care?

How large of a facility do you have?

Generally, you start with a sample size of 10 to 15 sites and see what kind of results you get. You want to cover important areas for sanitation to get done right.

Are you looking for pass/fail numbers or are you looking for a set number? What surfaces are you testing?

We are a small jerky and sausage manufacturing plant.  We do over 200 products.  We have 5 production lines.  4 RTE lines with one being a hotdog and deli meat line.  We also do ground beef and whole muscle injected products as well.  And yes, I meant ATP

Generally speaking the ATP reading is only giving you a general idea of sanitation.  Use it after cleaning, before applying sanitizer.  A couple of swabs per RTE line is probably sufficient to give you an idea if there are significant levels of non-organoleptically-perceptible residues remaining. 

Number of tests would be dependent on the size of each of your lines.  Every piece of equipment on that line should have multiple swab points.

As for frequency, ATP gives you a general sense of overall cleanliness.  What is your defined metric for a clean surface?  In my sites it's under 20 RLU from a Hygiena Ultra-Snap test, anything above must be recleaned.  I think we're long past the days of "visual inspection showed clean" for a site.

How do you handle allergen changeover cleanings?  What does USDA think of your current cleaning practices?

We use the Hygiena as well with 20 RLU being the cutoff.  We have been doing 3 swabs per line weekly.  As for Allergens USDA has been fine with our allergen program that does not require any testing.  We do a clean and sanitize when switching allergens.  We typically do allergens last on the production list.  Only have one RTE room that deals with all the allergens.  The rest of the lines have just one allergen in almost all products.  So, I am getting allergen specific tests to do.  We are going to do 5 tests for each allergen after we run a product with that allergen and then annually there after.  We will continue to do the ATP throughout the year.  I was thinking weekly for all RTE rooms except the one that has all the allergens.  Was planning on doing that one every other day.