Water is essential for life, but in food production facilities, it also fuels contamination threats that can derail any company.
“In dry facilities, water is the fuel for our enemies. Eliminating as many sources of water as possible will help eliminate Salmonella and other pathogens in the overall microload. So think of this as a war on water and keep those enemies in mind,” Jeremy Travis, M.B.A., Vice President of Engineering Services at Hilmar Cheese Co. Inc. said.
Travis likened these microbes to cacti or wildflowers that lie dormant in dry conditions until water brings them to life.
He also stated that “if you introduce water, you'd better be very good at managing it so it's not just open up and go.”
In addition, Travis broke down the seven steps of effective dry sanitation, from prep to final inspection and documentation.
Travis’ comments came during the recent Food Safety Magazine webinar “Dry Sanitation and Cleaning Techniques for Facilities and Equipment,” where he was part of an expert panel that included Abby Snyder, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Food Science at Cornell University, and Samuel Alcaine, Ph.D., Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs for the International Dairy Association.
Budget restraints often get in the way of food safety and proper contamination prevention. In the webinar, the experts took apart the myth that moisture control requires a massive investment of funds, and highlighted more economical options.
“If you're a small facility and you're trying not to make an enormous capital investment and think about how you can improve things. There are some lower input strategies,” Abby Snyder noted.
She referenced using fans to improve air circulation to dry out surfaces and stated that most microbial reduction comes from cleaning and that pathogen growth depends on relative humidity and how long water stays present.
In what may seem like a counterintuitive point, Snyder noted that while it's commonly believed that frequent wet washes are a net benefit for food safety, the trade-off is that more wet washes in dry areas also boost the threat posed by environmental pathogens like Salmonella.
Snyder advised food manufacturing professionals to “treat water like glass - with extreme care.”
She also said that “sanitizers are not magic in a can,” and that “the reality is that if you have crevices in your environment that are hard to clean, they are also going to be hard to sanitize. You need to identify hard-to-clean crevices so you know where they are.”
Alcaine, for his part, dived deep into the regulatory policies that affect cleaning and sanitation, and noted tools that can help monitor and track pathogens, and why it's important to adopt a multi-layered approach towards these threats.
But that’s only scratching the surface of what was covered in the webinar. To take in the entire discussion and get free access to the slides presented by the experts, click here to register for the on-demand webinar “Dry Cleaning and Cleaning Techniques for Facilities and Equipment.”