Pre and Post Heat Treatment cfu/swab Levels

Hello,

My facility wants to revise our environmental monitoring program based on the sites that get swabbed pre heat treatment to our product and post heat treatment. What is a generally acceptable level for APC, EB, and Yeast/Mold for pre and post heat treatment? Would it be something around 5,000 cfu/swab or 10,000 cfu/swab? What would be the rationale behind choosing these levels?

Hi oahr1996,

Levels are usually quoted per cm2.

See the Micro. Guidelines for Food Contact Surfaces forum here.

https://www.ifsqn.co...ces/#entry60958

The late great Charles C, posted a Compilation of International Micro. Guidelines for food contact surfaces, 2000 onwards

Kind regards,

Tony

A question.  Why are you swabbing pre heat treatment?

I had a site a long time ago using root vegetables and they were swabbing surfaces where there was still soil and trying to come up with a corrective action for a high swab count.  I couldn't convince the TM nor group that swabbing in that location was pointless.

Hello,

 

My facility wants to revise our environmental monitoring program based on the sites that get swabbed pre heat treatment to our product and post heat treatment. What is a generally acceptable level for APC, EB, and Yeast/Mold for pre and post heat treatment? Would it be something around 5,000 cfu/swab or 10,000 cfu/swab? What would be the rationale behind choosing these levels?

Like GMO I'm wondering why you would bother to regularly test the pre-lethality area?

As a ballpark range 5-10k for Y/M and APC are values I've seen in a few places.  In some ways it depends on your product, shelf life, etc. what is tolerable.