Hi Clly,
Thanks for your inquiry.
Does anyone have a procedure or validation of a less than daily cleaning for raw ready to cook MAP traypack areas and/or KP (chub) pack lines? Much appreciated.
It is difficult to address your request without understanding the layout, flow, size and proximities of your processing room and equipment. I take it from the context that you must be packing meat/poultry under USDA FSIS inspection?
It would also help to understand your goal. None of my MAP tray packing equipment was food-contact and it did not get visibly soiled on a daily basis. During the sanitation shift, the crew would cover it with shrink wrap to protect it from splash and over-spray from cleaning the processing room and the other equipment. In short, the SSOP for this and all the non food contact packaging equipment detailed the use of brushes to get at the dry debris in the areas that would accumulate dust and then to wipe down with approved disposable alcohol based wipes (Ecolab). The frequency was just once per week. The FSIS IPP never found fault with my SSOPs for these pieces of equipment or with their cleanliness during pre-operation inspections. There was also an additional SSOP for these machine to receive a highly detailed deep cleaning during the manufacturers recommended maintenance routine. As I remember the frequency for that was every 6 weeks.
I would point out that a less than daily sanitation for this equipment did not gain me anything in terms of productive run time. They still had to be shut down and protected during the sanitation shift in order to clean the processing room and all the other food-contact equipment.
Although the SSOP for the equipment was less than daily, the SSOP for the floor, walls and drains in that AREA was not. I could never have demonstrated that. Also, there was no way to supply these MAP tray packing machines while the rest of the room was being cleaned. All I gained was that it required less man-hours for the sanitation crew by not having to deep clean these every night. Aside from 9 CFR regulations, FSIS IPP can also bring production to a halt and have you clean up if they observe that clutter is an OSHA type personnel safety hazard. Our process room was small and congested; more than once IPP stopped the packaging line because they observed tripping hazards.
As long as you can demonstrate that you are following your SSOP and not adulterating or contaminating product with an unsanitary condition or cross-contact condition, you can write your SSOP procedure with any frequency you like.
As far as the validation of the shift duration aspect of your inquiry goes; we had a long history of data collection. We kept the processing room at a very consistent 35-36 F. and had meticulous records of both ambient room temperature and product temperature. It was a miserable work environment, but at that temperature there is no bacterial growth. We also had a very strong, proactive Pathogen Environmental Monitoring PRP to support SSOP frequencies.
