Hahaha the production lead actually suggested that I might have been sick and coughed germs onto the sample sponge or that the sponges themselves were already contaminated during manufacturing, because every single sample showed high counts of pseudomonas.
Maybe instead she should start listening to us when we tell her that production equipment from 1970 might not be sufficient to run a food production with the hygiene requirements of today. But no, replacing that would cost more money than just taking samples over and over until the results are low enough (probably because by the 37th swab I cleaned the surface better than the production workers)
Couldn’t you just add up the germs found in successive swabs to the total and increase the total count with each test?
(I assume you have certain testing and evaluation standards you’re bound to, so that’s a “No”, but I like the idea of the results getting worse rather than better)
What would newer equipment do differently to make it less prone to hygiene issues?
Couldn’t you just add up the germs found in successive swabs to the total and increase the total count with each test?
I’m not quite sure I understand the method you’re describing 😅
When it comes to microbiological contamination, there are a couple of factors that can make a tremendous difference. For example, the base material that the machine is made of. Up to 1980, 1990, maybe even the early 2000s, many machines were still made of steel only, instead of stainless steel, and so they needed a layer of paint to make sure that they don’t start rusting, especially in food production, which often times uses water in the production process and in the cleaning process. One disadvantage of this is that the paint at some point will start cracking and splintering off creating foreign bodies that can contaminate your product as well as creating rough textures surfaces that are perfect for germs to snuggle into.
Also, since the hygiene requirements on food were not as strict in the past, machines from that time may not have been designed with regular deep cleaning in mind. Most modern production plants have a Cleaning In Place procedure which allows to properly clean the insides of the machines with no or minimal disassembly.
Another factor is the design of pipes and tanks. If you have sharp 90 degree turns in your pipes or if your tank has no outflow hole on the lowest point (you can sometimes see it with beer kegs, where the tap is stuck in somewhere in the lowest eighth of the keg instead of actually on the very bottom), liquids will accumulate there and that will turn stale.
There are more factors that make hygienic production according to today’s standards more difficult in some older machines than in newer ones, but these are the ones that come to my mind right away.
Hahaha the production lead actually suggested that I might have been sick and coughed germs onto the sample sponge or that the sponges themselves were already contaminated during manufacturing, because every single sample showed high counts of pseudomonas.
Maybe instead she should start listening to us when we tell her that production equipment from 1970 might not be sufficient to run a food production with the hygiene requirements of today. But no, replacing that would cost more money than just taking samples over and over until the results are low enough (probably because by the 37th swab I cleaned the surface better than the production workers)
Couldn’t you just add up the germs found in successive swabs to the total and increase the total count with each test?
(I assume you have certain testing and evaluation standards you’re bound to, so that’s a “No”, but I like the idea of the results getting worse rather than better)
What would newer equipment do differently to make it less prone to hygiene issues?
I’m not quite sure I understand the method you’re describing 😅
When it comes to microbiological contamination, there are a couple of factors that can make a tremendous difference. For example, the base material that the machine is made of. Up to 1980, 1990, maybe even the early 2000s, many machines were still made of steel only, instead of stainless steel, and so they needed a layer of paint to make sure that they don’t start rusting, especially in food production, which often times uses water in the production process and in the cleaning process. One disadvantage of this is that the paint at some point will start cracking and splintering off creating foreign bodies that can contaminate your product as well as creating rough textures surfaces that are perfect for germs to snuggle into.
Also, since the hygiene requirements on food were not as strict in the past, machines from that time may not have been designed with regular deep cleaning in mind. Most modern production plants have a Cleaning In Place procedure which allows to properly clean the insides of the machines with no or minimal disassembly.
Another factor is the design of pipes and tanks. If you have sharp 90 degree turns in your pipes or if your tank has no outflow hole on the lowest point (you can sometimes see it with beer kegs, where the tap is stuck in somewhere in the lowest eighth of the keg instead of actually on the very bottom), liquids will accumulate there and that will turn stale.
There are more factors that make hygienic production according to today’s standards more difficult in some older machines than in newer ones, but these are the ones that come to my mind right away.