Hand to Hand Combat: The Hygiene Equation

It seems there’s always something coming down the food contamination pike. Just as the public begins to forget E. coli in ground beef there’s salmonella in peanut butter. As the salmonella concerns fade, listeria turns up in deli meat.

All are good reasons for the increased focus on sanitation of all types in food and beverage plants. Along with the washdowns, clean-in-place systems and hazards analysis and critical control points (HACCP) programs, there is renewed emphasis on one of the basics of plant sanitation: personal hygiene.

From hand washing to boot scrubbing to clean uniforms, there are simple and largely individual efforts that food plant employees can make to ensure a safe food supply – and the continued success of their plant and their company.

Twenty Canadians died this past summer from listeria traced back to a Maple Leaf Foods deli meat plant in Toronto. How the listeria got into two of the plant’s slicing machines may never be fully understood, but spreading it by human contact is certainly a possibility. As of late October, the plant still had not reopened, despite test runs of food.

Employee hygiene is good at most U.S. food plants, but employees should be trained to realize when they may have inadvertently compromised their hygiene. PHOTO: NSF INTERNATIONAL

Automated boot washing systems ensure boots are free of soil and are hygienically clean before employees enter processing areas. PHOTO: MERITECH

While listeria can be found in many, maybe most, plants if you look hard enough, it should never get above floor level. But, “It can be brought in or moved from one area to another on shoes or boots,” explains Michele Colbert, vice president of sales and marketing for Meritech Inc. (www.meritech.com), Golden, Colo. “Listeria can grow in the moisture on floors and in drains. Walking through puddles of water can spread it all over the plant.”

As a result, Meritech is seeing great interest in boot sanitizing systems. “Even just a year or two ago, some plants didn’t do this at all,” continues Colbert. “Now, many are at least making people walk through foam sanitizers in entrances from one area to another. The really concerned ones are installing automated boot scrubbing systems, which ensure a sufficient amount of cleaning and sanitizing.”

Still, she says, many food plants have not sufficiently addressed the contamination potential of footwear.

As mom said…

Simple hand washing is another issue. Hand washing has been a requirement forever. But making sure employees do it and do it right, that’s another issue.

Meritech suggests a six-point program:

1. Soap: Antimicrobial soaps should be available at all wash stations. Closed dispensers and automatic systems are recommended to prevent the spread of infection. Counters are necessary to track handwash performance.

2. Water: Temperature should be not too hot, not too cold: ideally around 100 degrees, to assist in both pathogen removal and employee comfort.

3. Towels: Single-use paper towels or an automated paper towel dispenser improve cleanliness by adding friction and thoroughly drying hands. Blow dryers have a tendency to leave hands damp, if they are used at all.

4. Sanitizer: Instant hand sanitizers or wipes should be used when handwashing is not immediately available. They should provide residual protection, ideally for several hours, to continue killing pathogens after the wash.

5. Schedules and Guidelines: Handwash guidelines should be established based on health department and/or HACCP recommendations.

6. Time and Convenience: Handwash stations should be conveniently located throughout the facility. In plants, multiple handwashing stations should be installed at the entrance of the plant and in areas to prevent cross contamination.

Meritech has a number of hand washing systems, from traditional stations to highly automated – and audited – ones. In the company’s CleanTech systems, employees insert their hands into separate cylinders simultaneously. Twelve seconds in this automated wash yields hands as clean as those that undergo 30 seconds of manual hand washing – if the manual hand washing is done properly.