To spray or not to spray?

Avoiding chemical contamination of food product within your food business is not rocket science.  It is common sense and basic food safety not to spray pest or cleaning chemicals directly onto the surface of the food....right?  You would think so - but it is this very issue that has resulted in me issuing corrective action requests (CARs).

What went wrong?

There have been two separate food safety incidents of late.  The first involved an abnormal chemical showing up on a laboratory report and the second actually occurred whilst I was standing observing a food handler undertake a cleaning activity.

Linking food safety laboratory results

An item of produce was tested for a range of pesticides as part of a routine food safety verification program.  Product was sent to an external laboratory and tested for a range of different pesticides to confirm compliance with the law around MRL’s (maximum residue limits).  It was from the laboratory report that a pesticide not usually associated with the produce was identified.

This chemical was later found to be the same as an active constituent found in common house ‘fly spray’. Cans of ‘fly spray’ were found around the produce packing rooms. So in short, food handlers were controlling flies in the packing area by the use of common fly-spray but did not consider the spray landing on food product.

Cleaning 101
On the second occasion, I was standing watching a food handler cleaning a piece of equipment. Cleaning chemical was being applied to the surface of a hot grill using a spray bottle.  They continued to spray chemical onto the grill without any concern for the open cold storage server located right next to the grill.

You could actually see the chemical spray drifting and landing directly onto the freshly prepared salad and sandwich ingredients. When the food handler was questioned about their actions, they had no idea what they had done or what the food safety implications were.

Food Safety Lessons Learned

Hopefully from these two examples, you can avoid the simple food safety hazard of chemical contamination within your food business.  It is also highly recommended that all food handlers are trained in the correct storage and use of chemicals.  Take a minute to think about the use of chemicals in your business and if you have correctly assessed the risk in your HACCP hazard analysis.

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E.Coli Food Poisoning Outbreak: A Timely Reminder

The E.coli food poisoning outbreak in Germany is a timely reminder for food businesses to review their food safety hazard analysis tables.  As it stands today, over 630 cases of HUS (Haemolytic uraemic syndrome and 1601 cases of EHEC (Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli) infections (without HUS) have been reported in Germany.  Of these, 21 deaths have been recorded.


Food Safety Hazard Analysis

The majority of certification standards require the food business to keep up-to-date with new and emerging diseases along with reviewing their hazard analysis or food safety risk assessments on a regular basis.
 
Check that specifically E.Coli has been identified and assessed as opposed to just “microbiological hazards”.  A common mistake by the food industry in the hazard analysis process is to not get specific with the actual type of microbiological hazard identified.  This is important as one common “preventative measure” does not and will not control all different types of microbiological hazards.

Risk of E.Coli

The outbreak in Germany highlights the need to undertake a review for any food business that uses or processes fresh produce, seeds or sprouts (or anything that ordinates from soil or water).  What is generally known about E.Coli is that it commonly found in the gut of humans and warm-blooded animals. 
Although the source of the bacteria has not yet been identified in the outbreak, I suspect some type of cross contamination issue with faecal matter (maybe via fertiliser or watering).


Further Reading

If you would like to keep up to date with the E.Coli outbreak in Germany the World Health Organisation Media Centre is the place to look (http://www.who.int/en/).

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