Considering hygiene in food factories

Well informed consumers demand the highest quality food, which means fresh, nutritious, safe products. It is in the manufacturers’ interest to ensure that their products reach consumers in perfect condition and that – at the very least – it is safe to consume.

Of course, this feat requires careful attention throughout the entire supply chain, but food and beverages are at significant risk of contamination during manufacture within the factory. Ingredients come into contact with surfaces and an environment that is in constant contact with food (and all the bacteria and microorganisms that come with it). Adherence to proper hygiene standards is therefore essential in order to prevent contamination at this vulnerable stage of production. But what are most significant issues for processors to consider and what technologies can help?

New Food asked six industry experts for their opinions

In order to establish the most significant issues in maintaining factory hygiene, it is important to first establish a broad definition. Dr Roland Cocker, Cocker Consulting, Chair of EHEDG Hygienic Integration subgroup and member of EHEDG training and valves subgroups, considers “we have to dispel the notion that maintaining factory hygiene means making everything in the factory as clean as possible. I believe that it means assuring that hygiene levels in each part of the factory never compromise the safety of the resulting end product(s)”. In these terms, it seems hygiene levels are important relative to its ability to impact the safety of the final product. Therefore, as Cocker puts it, “factory hygiene is only as strong as the weakest link”. This implies a strong commitment to hygiene throughout the vulnerable areas of the factory and, indeed, to the HACCP principles. Dr Tony Hasting, formerly of Unilever R&D but now a private consultant, agrees that top level commitment from the factory manager is a critical issue for maintaining hygiene, “without this, factory hygiene will not be given the attention it requires.” Dr Cocker maintains, “top management needs to ensure that a fully integrated hygiene system – including hygienic engineering and training – is permanently active.” Thus, it seems, co-ordination from senior managers of many factors is an essential component in ensuring an effective hygiene system in a factory.

Maggie Duke, QA Advisor and Expert in Hygienic Engineering at Nestle and Knuth Lorenzen, GEA Tuchenhagen, both cite a number of factory variables as equally important, the first being that of ‘People’. Maggie Duke explains that a lack of understanding and coaching often results in the downfall of hygienic standards in factories1. Knuth Lorenzen considers ‘people’ to be a major consideration, but asserts that hygiene is more than mere cleanliness. “Hygiene is commonly used as a fancy word for cleanliness, but it is much more”. Lorenzen considers the term ‘hygienic’ to mean “having a positive influence on people’s wellness, therefore everything that is harmful to people or will make people ill is unhygienic.” Following this definition to its conclusion, Lorenzen believes that “Happy, healthy people are the base of effective, high quality production.” John Holah, Head of Food Hygiene, CCFRA concurs that “people must be adequately trained to undertake the correct hygienic practices properly.” If the correct practices and procedures (e.g. personal hygiene, cleaning and disinfection) are in place, they will be useless without adequate personnel training.

It seems that a factory’s workforce is the lifeblood of production: They require training and investment of time and money to ensure they can effectively and intelligently deal with quality problems on the line – and their health and happiness is also directly related to quality production!

Factors aside from ‘People’ include “Automation – too much push button complacency; Computers – too much time spent at the desk and not on the line; and Experience – no time for young people coming into the industry to spend 2-3 years learning on the line” says Duke.

Bo B.B. Jensen, BioCentrum-DTU and Chairperson of the Training and Education subgroup of EHEDG believes that well designed equipment that allows easy cleaning is the most significant issue in maintaining factory hygiene. “For closed equipment this should, of course, go hand-in-hand with CIP (clean in place) procedures.” The necessity for clean equipment is an obvious one and designing equipment with this in mind is essential in order to ensure the job can be carried out thoroughly. “However, CIP procedures are one aspect of optimisation with respect to time, detergent and energy to reduce the environmental strain and also reduce economics. Hence, equipment design becomes very important for closed equipment,” states Jensen. If areas of the production line are not designed effectively, they can be impossible to clean and threaten the hygiene – and therefore safety – of the line. “Cleaning will never be performed in areas with difficult access…no matter how much time is dedicated to the cause,” he says.

Manual v automated procedures?

It seems there is no such thing as an ideal balance between manual and automated procedures to optimise hygiene. Bo B.B. Jensen is unreserved in his assessment that “ideally, automated systems should be used all over as this would prevent laziness of cleaning personnel influencing cleaning quality.” CIP for closed systems is indeed an ideal way of ensuring thorough and consistent cleaning, but this is not the best option for open processes. Jensen explains that “this is not realistic (in open processes) because of present design and integration of equipment.” Jensen notes that automated cleaning systems “require extensive validation on all types of soil and surfaces. This can be a problem as testing cleaning of open surfaces might not be possible to cover all processing areas – only discrete points.”

Knuth Lorenzen agrees that “automated procedures should be used as much as possible, as any manual influence can reduce the repeatability of good hygienic installation and operation.” Others, however, are not unwavering in the virtues of automated procedures. Maggie Duke considers that both methods have pros and cons: On the subject of manual versus CIP Duke says “Of course manual introduces variation from person to person. CIP is ok provided the design and installation qualification has been carried out and performance qualification is ok.” The opinion seems to be that manual operators can bring inconsistency – be thorough sometimes, but unacceptable at others. “They can forget things, ignore things, get distracted, confused and fatigued more than automated systems do,” asserts Cocker. “For complex yet routine procedures such as managing liquid processing systems with critical sequences of process steps (brewery, dairy, enzyme plant, continuous steriliser, cleaning and sterilsation, etc.) automation – in my experience – leads to more consistent achievement of hygienic performance.

urthermore, good automation requires the application of human knowledge and experience. It can be a way of capturing and validating these and then ensuring that they are continuously applied.” However, as Maggie Duke points out, “manual means that the operator has a better chance of understanding the process and observing the line, whereas CIP can bring blindness.” There is definitely an advantage to human experience and this is something that automation can never possess. However, as John Holah points out, “if people could be removed from the food production area, a major source of contamination would be controlled.”

Technology

Various technological aids are employed in factories to help maintain hygiene, but what are considered to be the most valuable tools? The answer is a simple one for Bo Jensen, who asserts that CIP and foaming significantly improve the problem. Roland Cocker is in agreement and considers that, in general, “hygienic design of equipment, together with automated clean-in-place (CIP) and/or sterilise-in-place (SIP), has been a key hygiene technology for closed systems.” The majority of those interviewed considered that cleaning technologies were the most significant, but Tony Hasting went further than just CIP. He also cited “environmental control – including air handling/filtration, localised cooling, pest control and operator hygiene,” as integral aids to maintaining good factory hygiene.

Holah considers that “hygiene has improved dramatically since the development of the segregation techniques needed to establish high risk/care areas. These areas protect the food during its further processing following a decontamination treatment by excluding microorganisms (to varying degrees) from the processing areas.” This serves to limit, or prevent, subsequent cross-contamination of product.

Maggie Duke maintains that technologies are of little value alone and that “coaching of people and making certain that they understand all of the priorities for prevention (of contamination) is critical to complement technology”. Knuth Lorenzen agrees and asserts that “education and awareness of people in food hygiene (would benefit from) periodical recaps at training sessions, workshops or seminars.” This reflects the opinion that ‘people’ are critical to hygienic production and are therefore pivotal to the effectiveness of any technology employed for maintaining hygiene.

The drivers

But who drives development of hygienic equipment – is it the food companies or equipment suppliers themselves? Feedback indicates that the answer is both. Lorenzen considers that the size of the company, rather than the type, is more important and that all big companies drive development – but very few SMEs. Roland Cocker agrees that it is a partnership and points to the EHEDG as a good example of how members of equipment suppliers and food manufacturers work in teams to produce guidelines. “Customer power is key,” he says “and it is often the food companies that drive things, for example the establishment of ANSI NSF 3-A ISO 14159, at the instigation of the US meat and poultry industry.” Bo Jensen makes a similar point, that it is the large food manufacturers who go out of their way to improve hygiene: “Some of the big food companies make a huge effort to improve the state of hygienic equipment.” Jensen believes that improvements are mostly driven by customer demands, which creates a problem with SMEs. “SMEs (often) use standard processing machines…which may also be bought from SME equipment suppliers. Both types of SMEs may not have the man power to go into the details of hygienic design, hence, no demand from customers will come and suppliers will not drive it themselves.”

Tony Hasting reflects that a combination of both food and supplier companies drive innovation, “with perhaps the larger food companies such as Unilever, Nestle, etc. being the initial drivers and the equipment companies realising that designing more hygienic equipment could provide some competitive advantage.”

Holah agrees, stating: “Improvements to the hygienic design of equipment generally will only come via demands from equipment users for something more hygienic.”

Maggie Duke, however, considers a prescription of who should drive development. Whilst admitting that team work is preferred, Duke considers that the onus is on food companies to initiate change because “only the food manufacturer can state the specifications required for the type of product to be manufactured…It is the responsibility of the user to make additional requests for any modifications required.” Furthermore, development should naturally evolve as a result of changes made when problems occur in usage. Duke comments: “I have just encountered three makes of machine – each with the same fault – which probably would not have been spotted during development. Suppliers and developers rarely run trials on equipment for longer than eight hours of normal factory production – and maybe never more than 50 hours which is just one week of production and when weaknesses start to appear.” This highlights the need for end users to put pressure on suppliers for equipment that properly meets their requirements. “A certificate will say that the design qualification is okay, but the practical experience must follow. Feedback to the supplier is essential for them to learn to eliminate faults in practice, ” says Duke.

Looking ahead

But what can we expect for the future?

In terms of technological development, Roland Cocker envisages “far better integration of hygienic design, installation and commissioning of buildings, logistics, equipment, product designs, procedures and automation. ” In short, more effectively combined efforts: “for example, validating the hygienic operation and performance of equipment and systems before using them to produce food for sale.”

Several of the interviewees expressed confidence in the value of training and education – promoted through HYFOMA and EHEDG. Cocker notes that “the recent availability of better education and training guidance, trainers, materials and courses” will inevitably result in improved levels awareness and, as a result, improved hygiene. Maggie Duke agrees that sharing experience will prove invaluable in the quest for better hygiene, but warns that “the history of hygienic engineering…and the reasons why we do things” should not be forgotten when the original experts retire. In other words, a thorough understanding of the origins of hygienic engineering is important in order to move forward and develop new ways to tackle the issue.

Technologies for monitoring key parameters affecting factory hygiene are also expected to improve things. “Monitoring the cleanliness of surfaces and air quality in high care areas…and improved interpretation of process data will allow factory management to be more proactive in identifying potential problems before they occur”, explains Hasting. “Currently, I believe we are data rich but interpretation poor, i.e. we do not make as much use of the available data as we could.”

John Holah, conversely, identifies a need for more data in the form of product exposure assessments in order to ascertain where product contamination actually comes from and where Managers should be targeting their resources to control it. Also, Holah suggests that there will be “further development of ‘whole room’ control methods, e.g. UV or ozone, to decontaminate work spaces in the absence of people.”

Bo Jensen anticipates that modeling tools will be more prevalent and applied for “predicting cleanability of equipment in the design phase”. This will save time and enable more effective machinery development. Modeling in addition to experimental work will also enable better use of flow in closed equipment. You can read more on this subject in the next issue of New Food.

References

1. Maggie Duke, The Important People Factor, New Food, Issue 2 2005

Acknowledgement

Photos are reproduced from ‘The value of EHEDG’, New Food, Issue 4 2004 – supplied by Maggie Duke, Nestle S.A.