I am currently in the same issue, the new company I'm at does not have a written sanitation program (of any kind). We are a small pickling company that falls under the high acidified foods category. Essentially I am going to have to write a sanitation program. If anyone has any good ways to develop a program from nothing, I would greatly appreciate the input.
Just a few things to get you started in no particular order:
1. Identify equipment, utensils and structures (floors, walls, drains, overheads, etc.)
2. Identify how to clean the stuff (this can come from equipment manuals that your maintenance department probably has).
3. Identify how often the stuff needs to be cleaned (again, there may be recommendations in equipment manuals).
4. Write cleaning procedures for the items you have identified.
5. Schedule all of this work.
6. Conduct some type of post-cleaning evaluation, to ensure the stuff is indeed "clean".
7. Train your people, utilizing the procedure you have developed. Since you are starting from scratch, I'll tell you upfront that you will be re-writing a lot of these procedures.
8. Train your people to NOT clean something that does not need to be cleaned. Instead, empower then to "let somebody know" that it looks clean. The supervisor or manager should go investigate and make a determination. This helps you to review your schedule. Say you scheduled some light fixtures for cleaning every two weeks. After two weeks they are still clean. Maybe you might want to change the frequency to monthly,
This also saves time. If people are not spending time cleaning things that do not need cleaned, they have more time to spend cleaning things that really do need the attention. You mentioned that you are a small operation. This step is extremely valuable to you.
9. Document your cleaning activities and verification.
10. Procure the help of a good cleaning chemical supplier. The good ones will work with you to identify the proper chemicals you need and will train your employees on the proper use of those chemicals. Some may even write your procedures.
There is a lot more to it, and I intentionally did not make this post specific.
If you have specific questions as you get this thing going, I'd be happy to help out if I can.
Marshall