Your food processing equipment is critical to keeping your facility going. While you fulfill all cleaning requirements and track the necessary regulations for temperature and pressure, make sure that your maintenance schedule has top priority.
Grease: When and Where You Need It
Grease is a huge challenge in many aspects of the food processing industry. You need food-safe grease to keep your machines lubricated, but you have to clean your tools and facility with products that remove the grease to meet cleaning requirements.
For example, if you have industrial mixers or ovens that need regular lubrication, the products you use may need to be deemed safe for incidental food contact. The market you ship to may have different regulations for what can be considered either safe or incidental.
Work with your lubrication suppliers on any new regulations impacting the food industry. Carefully review your stock of lubricants, their ingredients, and their shelf life to avoid a costly mechanical breakdown.
Make Time For Regular Maintenance
As possible, it may make the most sense to check your maintenance schedule during the cleaning process. Your maintenance team should also be able to work with your inspectors. Factors that impact food safety will need to be tracked, such as
- Moisture content
- Temperature consistency
- Temperature range
If your inspectors notice any variation in temperature or humidity in an oven or refrigeration unit, your maintenance team will need to address it immediately.
Track And Control Conditions That Add Heat To Food
There are many tools that move food down the line. This movement provides food processors the chance to take other measurements such as
Any area in your facility where food sits can become a space where heat builds up. Warmth is critical to bacterial growth. When bacteria get hold of a space, they can thrive in cracks and anywhere moisture can build up. if you can’t dry the space completely, you will have to start a regular routine of monitoring to reduce the risk of contamination.
Track Temperatures Inside Sealed Containers
If you have sealed, airtight tools that are part of your food processing facility, internal temperature tracking is critical. While an airtight seal will ultimately kill off many bacteria, the bacteria population is always evolving.
Should you find any bacterial overgrowth in the food in your facility, traceability is key. Knowing what the minimum, maximum, and median temperatures were for each batch of food will allow you to track down the conditions that allowed the overgrowth and take steps to kill off the bacteria in future batches.
For those who process grains, temperature monitoring becomes even more important. There are many grains that have husks inside and insect eggs can lie dormant. If you’ve ever opened a bag of rice or a tub of oatmeal and found insects, you are the recipient of grains that were not effectively heat-treated. Again, documentation is key to keeping your facility in the clear.
Forbes shares an article that discusses the challenges of the food industry and the unsustainability of food waste across the globe. New technologies are being implemented in the distribution chains in America to promote less waste. Similarly, new technologies are becoming available to dining businesses to ensure better usage of their ingredients to promote less waste and more profit.
Keep Dust And Static Under Control
The cleaning requirements for your machinery are likely posted and certainly adhered to within the food processing areas. As your cleaning crew, maintenance team and inspectors travel through the facility, make sure they are also checking the space for dust and grit.
The components that measure the temperature and moisture inside your food processing tools don’t need to be big to be impacted by static. Dust build-up increases the risk of limited airflow to your tools, which increases the risk of static. If your measuring tools are tied to temperature control, one bad sensor impacted by static can lead to a damaged batch of food product.
The regulations that determine the requirements of how you clean, monitor and maintain your food processing tools were written to increase access to safe food. Obviously, a secure food supply is critical to the population. However, you have the ability to reduce costs and increase efficiency by doubling up on actions. Control sensors that function within tools that perform other tasks are critical to keeping your product safe.
