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No matter how thorough the allergen risk assessments and HACCP analysis by food manufacturers, the presence of allergens in production presents significant cross-contamination and food safety risks to sufferers of food allergies. Here are six simple steps you can take to reduce the risks in your food factory.
1. Complete a detailed allergen risk assessment
Ensure all cross over points where allergen cross contamination risks are higher are highlighted and corrective action taken to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
2. Implement a colour coding policy that embraces allergens
This could be a colour for each allergen (if you only handle a few) or alternative colours between allergens and lines, e.g. Line 1 uses red and yellow, Line 2 uses blue and green, changing all PPE when moving from one product/allergen type to another. Research proves the processing speed between the human eye and brain is faster by visual communication such as colour coding than written communication. You cannot get away from using words, but make everything as visual as possible using images and colour.
3. Validation of your cleaning process
Validation of your cleaning process will reduce the risk of allergenic material in the next production run. Ongoing verification of the process is necessary as a measure of due diligence defence. This applies to machinery, equipment and hand tools.
4. Use specialist spill kits
No one welcomes glass/hard plastic breakages or allergen spills on site, but unfortunately sometimes these do happen. How quickly can a problem be contained and removed to minimise food safety risk and costly downtime? Installing specialist Stations in strategic locations throughout your factory ensures spill kits are highly visible and always locatable should they be instantly needed. Increased speed of response contains the incident and allows production to be back up and running in the minimum time possible with the minimum risk to food safety.
In short, ensure you are always ready for an incident and use specialist spill kits, in designated spill stations, to ensure they are highly visible to all staff in case of an incident.
5. Ensure you have foolproof methods for printed packaging
Make sure the right label, sleeve or box is used for the correct product. The majority of food allergen product recalls relates to incorrect packaging being used (the product contains one or more allergens not listed in the ingredient list). Unique codes for each type of packaging is a simple but effective method to safeguard against this happening.
6. Train your team again, again and again
You can have the best procedures and equipment in existence, but if your staff do not know how to use them and how to react in the event of an allergen spill they will not be sufficient. The sixth step is training, training, training. Make sure your team understand the procedure and their role in the event of a glass/ hard plastic breakage or allergen spill. Recap this often to keep it fresh in their minds.
