Sanitation Products
Food Processing Safety
LEARN MOREAs food processors, we understand all too well the importance of having professionals take specialized responsibility for food processing safety. For us, quality is job one, meaning that plant hygiene and food processing safety must be everyone's responsibility.
FSS Can Ensure Food Processing Safety in Your Facility
While the sanitation department usually receives the most focus, measures to ensure food safety involve different departments, including production, quality assurance, maintenance, and even human resources. The plant manager bears ultimate responsibility for the articulation, implementation, and enforcement food processing safety protocols.
He or she is in charge of the budget for sanitation and food safety supplies, training, and equipment and begins the process of making a case for capital expenditures – championing investment in new sanitation equipment or physical plant improvements.
Management support from the top is essential in the process of making food safety a plant-wide priority. Top management putting attention on and supporting the value of processing safety, and the central importance of sanitation personnel and programs, encourages middle management to make food processing safety goals a priority.
Management commitment is one of the most essential factors in the development of a plant-wide zero-defect food safety culture. All levels of management need to be on board with the tremendous importance of food processing safety as a business as well as a public health issue.
The foundation for all food safety processes is the elimination of soils from the plant environment. The benefits of rigorous food safety processes fall into different categories:
- Food safety benefits: Elimination of pathogenic microorganisms, the prevention, or elimination of biofilms, and the removal of contaminants and harmful chemicals from food contact surfaces will reduce the risk of dangerous food product contamination.
- Quality benefits: Doing away with spoilage organisms increases shelf life for ambient and refrigerated products and decreases spoilage opportunities. Cleaning and sanitation prevents cross-over of residue from different batches and production runs as well as preventing flavor impact from spice and flavoring cross-over as well reducing the risk of unlabeled allergens.
- Productivity benefits: High standard food processing safety performance increases productivity – it facilitates efficient plant start-up and prevents costly production interruptions caused by the consequences of food safety failures.
- Regulatory, commercial and public relations benefits: Excellent food safety processes will – work to reduce the risk of negative regulatory attention from FDA or Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspectors; support increasingly commercially necessary certification and third-party auditing; and protect your company from the possibly catastrophic losses occasioned by public perceptions that your brand is unwholesome or unsafe.