Ozone Re-Emerges as an Economical and Green Safety Tool

At Tropic Seafoods, all cleaning and sanitizing chemicals have been eliminated from the processing room. Beaver Street Fisheries says workers use ozone to wash their hands, clean their boots, sanitize the lobster tails, and disinfect the processing area at the end of the day. The new system is also used as an in-process cleaning and sanitizing aid that keeps the tails protected from bacteria throughout the grading and packing process.

Beaver Street says microbiological analysis has revealed a significant improvement over their previous chlorine-based system. The company is also currently undertaking shelf life studies, which have shown ozone-based systems to have a significant impact at other seafood plants.

Despite all its promise, ozone does have limitations. One is its relatively short half-life, which varies depending on conditions like ambient and water temperature. Keeping this potential problem in mind, a company can achieve the best results by applying dissolved ozone at multiple steps along the course of processing, beginning as soon as is practical. Application at a single step along the production trail may be beneficial but is certainly not optimal. The ozone solution is applied to workers’ hands and boots, to all direct and indirect surfaces, and directly to product where applicable. The most dilute solution to achieve the desired microbial reduction—in the 1 to 1.5 PPM range—is used.

Food processors are held to a standard of sanitation. When independent universities, research labs, and members of an industry determine that ozone is more effective than conventional systems in eliminating pathogens, then this becomes the new standard. If it becomes the gold standard, then any company not adopting it as standard operating procedure opens itself to criticism and even potential litigation. When all is said and done, there is no better means than the continual and interventional use of ozone to guarantee a clean production facility throughout the production day.

The question facing the industry is, can it successfully engineer applications in which ozone is the best agent and try not to address applications in which chlorine continues to be the agent of choice—in poultry chillers, for instance? Ozone sanitation has some great advantages over conventional sanitation, but good application engineering is critical. The case for ozone can be made on the basis of increased food safety, energy savings, environmental benefits, worker safety, and return on investment. There is no question that a food safety advancement that is both economical and green is very unique.

Dr. Brandt is chairman of Ozone International, LLC. Reach him at [email protected] or (206) 780-5552.