Ammonia, steam and liquid nitrogen as hazards

 

Hello everyone,

 

I have a question about the hazards of materials that come into direct contact with food. Whether the HACCP study should also assess the potential risk of:

 

- Air for drying unpackaged products

- Ammonia for cooling

- Steam

- liquid nitrogen in blast freezers ?

 

We do microbiological testing for the air, and once a year we also test the vapor. I could not find any literature or experience about ammonia and liquid nitrogen. 

 

Do you have any ideas how to assess the risk and what control measures are necessary? 

 

Hi Kostadinova,

The potential safety hazard is contamination.

Items such as you refer are typically pre-controlled as GMP/PRPs and are thereby (assuming verified effectiveness exists) excludable from the Process hazard analysis. (Unless you desire to create an Encyclopedia :smile: )

For example Nitrogen (refrigeration) which contacts food should be Food Grade, ammonia (refrigeration) should not contact food, etc, etc