Ecoli Detected in steamer booth drain...

Hi guys I hope I can get some help here,

Im based in UK for starters and have just ben through BRC and gained a B grade within company im working at.

I performed a routine swab plan of various locations like I have done a million times before in many job roles but have never had a out of spec result return back with a positive result for ecoli...

I understand that most variants are harmless but in any case I have asked the lab to identify the strain doing some kind of test (cant recall name ) im no microbiologist so im wondering if this is something I need to report to EHO??? once I got the result I called a food safety meeting which consists of the haccp comitee members and immediately stopped using the steaming booths linked to those drains to perfrom a full deep clean. swabs sent off etc.. but how serious is this? or is it not so serious unless the identify a specific harmful variant of the strain? I would also ask what if it was salmonella?

Usually only thing we have detected is occasionally high coloy counts and sometimes listeria on floors in warehouse which is controlled by cleaning of those areas daily.

For your info:

Its a Dry end product that has very low Aw and low moisture content. and does not come into contact with the said drains they are merely a run off for steam condensate...

We performed  a risk analysis and deemed it to be a low risk of contamination to the products at that stage and further cooking processes have to be undertaken by end user to create the end product..

I had a building that was nearly 100 years old, about every 4-6 months I would get hit in this one drain.  It was nowhere near the product it had more to do with the design of the drain and because of the plumbing design it was expensive to change and corporate wasn't going to pay for it.  We were getting ready to put an automatic dripper on the line when they decided to close this building.   Being in the colonies,I don't know about the EHO, but  usually you swab daily until you 7 days of clean readings.

as far as I know e coli isn't notifiable. In some of the companies I work for they would find e coli regularly, especially at this time of year ( Seafood, raw product pre-cooking)

They would do as you do, Deep clean and swab daily until 7 days clear.

I have found over time, that a monthly deep clean is a holy and wholesome thing to do.....it controls things like this. E coli is going to pop up every now and then and the main thing is that you found it and are dealing with it.

Finding nasties in drains is not unusual. The normal action would be to deep clean and follow up with swabs but also investigate where the contamination came from, if contamination has spread from the drains to nearby areas and if your cleaning frequencies/procedures are adequate.

The idea of environmental swabbing is to identify and eliminate contamination before it gets to the product/product contact areas. For dry products the amount of water in the area should be kept to a minimum so maybe that is something you need to look at as well.

I doubt your EHO would be interested as you have stated there isn't a product risk.

Regards,

Tony

Dear David,

I performed a routine swab plan of various locations like I have done a million times before in many job roles but have never had a out of spec result return back with a positive result for ecoli.

 

It may depend on the specific conditions but my first reaction to above would be to ensure  validation of the sampling / analytical procedures for E.coli.

Rgds / Charles.C

thank you for all replies, im in process of conducting further testing after 2 deeps cleans over weekend and will b completing this for submission Monday morning (we don't run weekends except for this instance for cleaning...

I had considered areas out side of the drain to see where its coming from but there is not always a simple solution to where it came from... The drains are flushed daily an deep cleaned weekly but had noticed it had not been done for a month ^^ Non-conformance them for that and I believe and hope this is the root cause and by correcting it and monitoring it going forward it will not re-occur... thanks for all help....

Out of curiosity though what would be reportable? in terms of equipment like drains and Machinery if I had found on the meachines obviously I would have to consider it to be in product and go through that route <GULPS>  but is there a guide to when to report and not to with scenarious I could look at?

Dear David,

Not in UK  but I would have thought any significance is related to yr unknown process, eg likelihood of contamination/onward product usage. And to yr cleaning procedure. For example I am familiar with a wet cooking process utilising continuous hypochlorite dosed plant water for general purposes and within a cleaning/sanitizing routine. From experience there is a correlation between  micro.conditions of floor/drains as compared to non-dosage of hypochlorite.

Offhand, I would have thought EHOs would be uninterested in a random detection of E.coli  unless perhaps either a specialised product, O157 involved, high levels, repeatable. For a general comment might consider the EU's hygiene-related micro. limits in finished products.

But one never knows with EHO's.

Rgds / Charles.C

Hi David,

Re. COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 2073/2005 of 15 November 2005 on microbiological criteria for foodstuffs

Article 5
Specific rules for testing and sampling
2. Samples shall be taken from processing areas and equipment used in food production, when such sampling is necessary for ensuring that the criteria are met.
Food business operators manufacturing ready-to-eat foods, which may pose a Listeria monocytogenes risk for public health, shall sample the processing areas and equipment for Listeria monocytogenes as part of their sampling scheme.

Article 9
Analyses of trends
Food business operators shall analyse trends in the test results. When they observe a trend towards unsatisfactory results, they shall take appropriate actions without undue delay to remedy the situation in order to prevent the occurrence of microbiological risks.

E. coli is used for meat products as an indicator of faecal contamination. Action required: Improvements in production hygiene and improvements in selection and/or origin of raw materials.

It is also quoted in 2.5.1 Pre-cut fruit and vegetables (ready-to-eat) Limits are n 5 c 2 m 100/g M 1,000/g Action required: Manufacturing process Improvements in production hygiene, selection of raw materials
 

So if pre-cut fruit can have a maximum E.coli of 1,000/g I doubt very much any EHO would be interested in a positive in a drain.

Regards,

Tony