Although impossible to fully describe an effective Listeria control program in this short article, there are a few core strategies that will help control Listeria in your plant. It is important to understand and implement multiple control measures as no single step or intervention will be sufficient to eliminate or control Listeria risk in a given food processing environment.
Food safety plans based on a good risk assessment are critical in helping to identify microbial risks and potential management strategies. Good hygienic design and construction at an appropriate location is necessary to establish a sound microbial control program.
It is important to separate areas where ready-to-eat foods are processed, exposed, and stored from areas where raw foods are processed, as well as from equipment washing areas, in-house microbiological laboratories, maintenance areas, waste storage areas, and toilets.
Use of appropriate construction materials also plays an important role in minimizing cross-contamination. Food plants should be designed and constructed in a way that prevents standing water from accumulating in or around drains. Drains also should be easily accessible for proper cleaning. Further, it is critical to train every employee on cGMPs and Listeria preventive control measures to reduce potential contaminants that can come from the air, aerosols, employee traffic, and equipment.
It is highly recommended that employees receive ongoing training and that additional training is provided to current and new employees on the cGMPs for production, new equipment, environmental monitoring, and sanitary practices as needed to ensure all are up to date.
To minimize and control Listeria contamination in a ready-to-eat food establishment, it is important to establish and implement a written sanitation standard operating procedure SSOP and sanitation maintenance schedule. Further, the written SSOP should be readily available to personnel who are responsible for cleaning, sanitizing and monitoring. The written SSOP should address:. Sufficient care should be taken while assembling cleaned and sanitized equipment.
For example, the equipment should not be placed directly on the floor. It is recommended that the facility have separate, dedicated systems for cleaning the equipment of ready-to-eat and raw food products to avoid potential cross contamination.
It is critical to monitor and collect environmental samples on both food-contact and nonfood-contact surfaces e. An environmental monitoring program EMP should be carefully designed after evaluating a facility and its products. An effectively implemented EMP will assess the overall hygiene program in a facility and provide information to prevent possible microbial contamination of finished products. The EMP provides valuable data source and concentration on indicator organisms in a timely manner so that appropriate corrective action can be initiated.
Many people have misconceptions about EMP. The EMP is not designed to validate the effectiveness of cleaning and sanitizing methods, but is more focused on validating cleaning and sanitizing frequencies, and other Good Manufacturing Practices 21 CFR. For L. If the EMP results indicate a trend toward an increased incidence of Listeria spp.
Additionally, food-contact surfaces may be sampled routinely for Listeria spp. An effectively implemented EMP will act as an early warning system for Listeria spp. Despite improvements in production, handling, and distribution of food products in recent years, protecting consumers from listeriosis still remains a challenge.
An effective pest control program must be implemented throughout the processing facility to eliminate potential pests such as insects, birds, rodents, etc. A process validation or kill-step validation that is intended to deliver some degree of lethality is important to achieve food safety. For more information about controlling L. What is an inspection? What is an audit?
How are they different? And how do they fit into FSMA? When I ask government-related lawyers or consumer groups what an inspection is, they typically describe it as an activity where FDA enters a facility to physically examine its condition. This most often occurs when a negative food safety incident has been identified.
A food plant inspection is, by definition, a physical examination of the facility. This shift toward program review was done intentionally in an effort to encourage the development of programs that aid in the prevention of food safety incidents, rather than simply responding after the fact.
The reality is that the proactive use of both activities is critical to developing the preventive food safety culture that FSMA is attempting to establish and regulate worldwide. In the U. FSMA puts the burden of managing food safety in the hands of the producer or, in the case of imported products, the purchaser or broker. Ideally, the food chain would have stage-gates with checks on safety, and all processes and programs would be followed rigorously with a well-managed audit trail.
However, the food supply chain is not that orderly. FSMA will require audits for high-risk facilities in the U. This must be done on paper and in practice. Training and preparation for audits and inspections will be the key to success of any program.
Finally cleaning and cleaning validation is of utmost importance when it comes to a sound approach to allergen management in your factory. As discussed in the previous section of this article you need to plan proper cleaning steps in between production runs with an incompatible allergen profile i.
As the regulatory landscape is still zero tolerant to the presence of allergens, you need to make sure your cleaning steps are really getting rid of all the allergens still present in your production equipment after the production run.
The reason for this is that some people are even allergic to the parts per billion ppb level of allergens in products. This is the main reason why cleaning validation is such an important topic. The easiest and best way to prove that your cleaning, either with Cleaning In Place CIP or manual cleaning is truly effective is to take samples of your final rinse water and have this analysed for the presence of the relevant allergens by means of ELISA testing Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay test.
Of course you want to test for several allergen classes if you have multiple allergens present in your products. One allergen might stick stronger to a certain surface than another and also the combination of cleaning chemical used will make a difference in the effectiveness at which you are able to clean your production lines. Also be aware at times of replacing equipment which has been broken.
Sometimes different spare parts are being used, which might be more difficult to clean. The best approach when it comes to equipment is to ensure it is as easy to clean as possible. By applying the EHEDG principles your equipment will be easy to clean and minimize the risk of remaining allergens after cleaning as well as a lot of microbiological related issues. Mastery Allergens and Allergen Management.
What is the risk that you have allergens on your raw materials? And how often will you have allergens on your raw materials? What are the processing steps to minimalize the risk?
And what is the level that you are allowed to have allergen on your product? There are a lot more questions to ask to determine what precautions might be necessary for your product and facility. It is good to know where your products come from. Is there a possibility that your raw material contains allergens and what kind of allergen can be on your product?
An example: your raw material is strawberry and you want to freeze these. The strawberry field is next to a field were lupin grows. What is the legal maximum level of lupin on your end product? When you have a risk, the next step is that you have to search for precautions.
Yes — you would still need an Allergen Management Program. You still need to account for allergens that are not in the product undeclared allergens.
The sources can come from maintenance lubricants, packaging, cleaning chemicals. You also need to consider the food that your food handlers bring from home. Hi This is very important information and it will help to raw materials handlind, storing and producing.
Thanks for shareing your valuable information. It really depends on the 3rd part certification standard you are using. At a minimum, you would need a risk assessment to support that you are not handing un-packaged foods. After all, I still curious. Why do we need this allergen management program in our manufacturing line?
Although we already declared the hypersensitivity of ingredients may have on the label. Allergen management is not just about labelling your final product. It is about preventing the issue in the first place especially when it comes to cross contamination. To learn more about allergen management, please take a look at my allergen courses that I have available on demand. Your email address will not be published.
What is an Allergen Management Program? Posted 18 November - PM. Posted 19 November - AM. Kind Regards,. Posted 05 January - PM. On Demand. Posted 06 January - AM. We are a manufacture value-added products. All of our products are flash fried through a fryer. Can allergens be transferred from one product to another through the oil???
Posted 12 January - AM. Should a risk assessment out side of the haccp hazard analysis, be done for each product? Posted 30 March - PM. When you say you color coded the allergens, do you mean you color coded the utensils used for allergens? If so, do you have a color for each allergen or just a color for allergens in general.
I am wondering because I am in the same process. Thanks, jaredkkrischel. Posted 25 May - PM. Hi jaeredkkrischel, I believe what John was talking about was colour coding each allergen as he mentions products with one or multiple combinations of the big 8 allergens.
Each allergen should also have dedicated utensils, unless a good monitored hygiene program is in place, to again minimise cross contamination potential. Posted 24 October - AM. Could someone please help with changeover procedures. Posted 24 October - PM. Community Forum Software by IP. Board Licensed to: Saferpak Limited. FSL
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