4 replies to this topic

[r.bub]

I am hoping some of you can provide your thoughts regarding ATP swabbing as I am having individuals questioning when ATP swabs should be taken.  We are currently performing semi-annual ATP swabs in our production areas to verify/validate cleaning effectiveness (our primary verification is through visual inspection).  Not all of our production areas run each day and some of them might only run every few months.  Due to this, the individual responsible for performing ATP swabbing was required to coordinate semi-annual ATP swabbing with the production managers.  This ensured that we were taking ATP swabs of equipment right after use and cleaning instead of equipment that has been sitting unused for extended periods of time.  Swabs are taken after cleaning but before sanitizing (the production operators would notify the individual performing swabbing of when she could swab).  In the event she is not available for swabbing (e.g. sometimes cleaning happens during 2nd or 3rd shift), the swabs would be taken the following morning to allow for sufficient time for the sanitizer to dry and dissipate. 

 

Long story short, the responsibility for swabbing has transitioned to a different department and this department is asking if they can just go to each department and swab any equipment that is not in use, which could include equipment that hasn't been used for weeks or even months instead of coordinating with production managers.  Based upon my experience and past training, my response was it is preferred to swab equipment that was cleaned on the same day you are performing ATP swabbing (or cleaned the day before), but I am wondering if any of you have thoughts on this?

[G M]

I'm guessing that a set of equipment that hasn't been used for months is cleaned before it is used again?  What would swabbing it before that tell you, how much dust it collected?

 

You aren't verifying the effectiveness of the cleaning process if a bunch of contaminants have been introduced between the cleaning and the testing.

[kconf]

Swabbing is risk based. Do not overdo it if not necessary. 

 

When equipments are not in use, do they get covered? Are they cleaned after use? 

[MattQA]

ATP can be used to determine cleanliness and indicate the right frequency of cleaning. Doing swabs right after sanitation tells you how well an item was cleaned, but we know that over time something can become dirty. If you have the resources, swabbing right after cleaning AND right before running might be useful. This will give you an idea of how well it was cleaned and how clean it stayed. If both swabs pass, your cleaning and frequency of sanitation are good. If the first passes and the second does not then you could have an issue with frequency or a source of contamination. If the sanitation swab fails then it's time to reclean. The next best thing to do would be to swab before running and keep in mind that a fail could be caused by sanitation, frequency, or both. 

[GMO]

I'm going to get on my soapbox again.

 

ATP is really not as good as the salesmen will tell you it is.  It can be useful as a training tool but for validation?  Absolutely not.  For verification?  Nope.  For monitoring?  Perhaps but it's fallible. 

 

It's simply not accurate enough to be used as a validation tool.  So that's absolutely out.  But then the same goes for verification.  Ok you can maybe get a bit of a trend but what does that mean?  You can have different microflora present in low numbers which could still cause consumer illness.  Even if ATP was an accurate measure of presence of total microflora, which it's not.

 

In one cheese plant, so a buggy raw material (as it contains starter cultures) I had an operator tell me that he'd swabbed a belt which "looked dirty but the ATP swab said it was clean".  

 

After giving him a verbal clip round the ear for swabbing something that looked dirty, I realised this raised a bloody interesting point.  It wasn't even picking up the starter cultures.  WTAF?

 

So no, personally I am not bothered what they swab from an ATP point of view because it's mostly BS.  Sorry...  (Different suppliers realising I'm not the only person saying this have now developed swabs that also detect ADP and AMP to try and counter this but sorry, still BS in my opinion.)  They're expensive as well.  And what on earth is once every 6 months actually telling you?

 

Much better, IMO to have a rigorous post clean inspection and verification using traditional swabs (more frequent than 6 monthly but not every clean).  You could use a combination of indicator organisms and pathogens depending on your product.

 

If you REALLY want to use ATP, I'd only use it as a training tool and occasionally as part of that visual inspection but frankly I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.