Pork Plant Sanitation

Pork Processing Sanitation from FSS

Here are the standard steps in pork processing plant sanitation and cleaning:

• Dry cleaning is the removal of scraps and coarse solid particles using dry brush, broom, or shovel. Using water during this step is wasteful and will quickly overwhelming drains.

• Water cleaning can be accomplished manually with brushes and scrapers, but is labor and time intensive. Most modern pork plants use high-pressure hot water for the next phase, which removes remaining small solid particles, blood, grease, fats, and dirt.

• Chemical cleaning is the next step, designed to take care of sticky or encrusted layers of fat or protein. A variety of chemicals are used for cleaning, including alkaline, acids and neutral chemicals. Surfactants and detergents are often added to increase their effectiveness. Additional cleaning components can include chlorine, silicate or phosphate. Neutral chemicals, while less effective, are less corrosive and less dangerous to the people using them. Foam cleaning has been gaining widespread acceptance as it increases the time chemicals are in contact with surfaces and reduces the creation of aerosols.

• Disinfection is the final stage of cleaning and sanitation. While cleaning removes a number of pathogenic microorganisms, it is does not sufficiently reduce the number of organisms capable of creating food-borne illness. Quaternary ammonium compounds are can be used as disinfectants, and also as cleaning agents for lightly soiled surfaces. A wide variety of substances can be used to disinfect the pork processing facility, including chlorine containing compounds, gaseous chlorine, aldehydes, alkalines, acids, and oxygen releasing compounds such as peroxide compounds (H2O2) and peracetic acid.