Fight Pathogens and Microbes in Processing Areas

Remove, manually clean, and sanitize all subcomponent blades, grinder plates, and removable impellers in a three-compartment sink, dishwasher, or clean-out-of-place (COP) tank. After thorough sani- tation, carefully reassemble all detachable parts under proper GMPs. Again, some of these units have excellent hygienic designs and are rated by the NSF or Underwriters Laboratories Inc., while older units have a lot of hygienic design issues and are challenging to sanitize.

Most dishwashing units do an excellent job, provided the food service operator properly designs, uses, and maintains them.

Slicers are in a whole realm by themselves and are used in the entire range of food service operations, from the tiny restaurant or deli to the large-scale food service plant. Trade groups and regulatory authorities have spent a lot of time and effort describing proper GMPs and sanitation procedures, because slicers are tremendous cross-contamination vectors with RTE products.

With respect to proper GMPs affecting food safety, a dedicated slicer (e.g., for RTE meat products), stored under proper refrigeration, can be cleaned daily. At roughly 50°F to 55°F, the Food Code requires a 10-hour sanitation frequency. If your slicer is kept at ambient temperatures, especially if it is used for warm to hot moist RTE products, more frequent sanitation is needed. The Food Code prescribes a four-hour cleaning frequency under these criteria.

The sanitation frequency for a slicer is dependent upon the product type, the environmental conditions, and the proper validation environmental sanitation studies (e.g., ATP and microbial indicator swabs). A typical modern slicer has many components that can be removed for proper sanitation, including the meat holders/grips, chutes, and knife guards. Manually clean and sanitize these components or wash them in a dishwasher.

The most troublesome component is the slicer blade. Most current commercial units do not have a removable blade to facilitate proper sanitation. Careful manual cleaning and sanitizing, wiping from the center of the blade to the edges, is necessary.

In 2006, Mike Doyle and colleagues at the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, under the initiative of the American Meat Institute’s Equipment Design Task Force, conducted a comprehensive study of the sanitary design of meat slicers for better cleanability.2 One of the critical subcomponents for sanitation, namely meat holders/grips, varied in their hygienic design. The better designed components were removable, had fewer grip teeth, and had more grease-resistant food contact surfaces. This rule applied to guard rings, as well. Also, in components like blade covers, chutes, and carriage trays, those with flat, smooth, grease-resistant surfaces were far easier to clean and sanitize.

HVAC Issues and Concerns

Food service kitchen ventilation for the general environs and specifically for the hoods used in cooking zones (stoves, ovens, and fryers) must be hygienically maintained to avoid cross-contamination issues. Airborne microbes can and will wreak havoc upon your food service operations.

First, let us discuss the general environmental airflow and its parameters. Ideally, any cooking or post-cooking food-handling zone should be under positive pressure to prevent airborne contaminants from entering the critical product processing and handling zones of the operation.

Maintain a strict periodic maintenance sanitation schedule for the HVAC system so that it can properly filter out chemical, physical, and microbial airborne contaminants, while preserving all food handling and processing zones under their optimal temperature and humidity. This applies both for a facility’s perishable storage rooms, its refrigerators and freezers, as well as for the general food handling environs.