ATP Swabbing Advice On Setting Pass Fail Criteria
Greetings all,
I have had some experience with ATP devices for verifying production lines being clean etc, however this was a number of years ago.
Id like to demonstrate the value of such a device to a business and have sourced a unit (on loan) to undertake a demonstration.
If i recall correctly high care / high risk environments would usually have pass fail marginal value of around 100 300 500 RLU and low care well i honestly cant recall but was a lot higher...
I have had a play around and have undertaken a full 6 stage clean on a packing table (SS) in high care packing, which is fairly old with many light scratches on but its yielding around 500 ish RLU
I believe i would need to validate the use of ATP machine if i actually purchase te unit which would yield more accurate readings once i have enough data, but would ask anyone that is currently using these devices what sort of target values you are using for each type of area to give me an idea if im in the right ball park.
Cheers....
did you swab post clean but pre sanitizer?
I am in a low risk arena---our average value on food contact surfaces is roughly 70 RLU on UHMW surfaces
500 seems very high---high enough to want to reevaluate cleaning methods, including chemical concentrations
Light scratches in a SS surface shouldn't prevent the effectiveness of the cleaning when done properly--take a look at the process again
I think you could justify the cost by explaining what you have found already---the facility isn't as clean as it ought to be and by being able to swab and get a quantifiable number, you can save them money by maintaining or even increasing shelf life as well as helping to reduce general contamination
Greetings all,
I have had some experience with ATP devices for verifying production lines being clean etc, however this was a number of years ago.
Id like to demonstrate the value of such a device to a business and have sourced a unit (on loan) to undertake a demonstration.
If i recall correctly high care / high risk environments would usually have pass fail marginal value of around 100 300 500 RLU and low care well i honestly cant recall but was a lot higher...
I have had a play around and have undertaken a full 6 stage clean on a packing table (SS) in high care packing, which is fairly old with many light scratches on but its yielding around 500 ish RLU
I believe i would need to validate the use of ATP machine if i actually purchase te unit which would yield more accurate readings once i have enough data, but would ask anyone that is currently using these devices what sort of target values you are using for each type of area to give me an idea if im in the right ball park.
Cheers....
Hi Khazard,
It's basically simple.
If you refer to manufacturer ATP manuals, the first thing they often suggest tp do is to determine your own (semi-statistical) baseline for relevant surfaces.
Typically Involves doing IIRC a series of ca. 5 trials and a short calculation. One run is sort of meaningless.
(Some instrument Manuals do give suggested ranges for a variety of food types/surface materials but validation may be required so that ultimately can be easier to create one's own).
Thanks guys,
Think im going to take a look at the chemicals and check concentrations from the dosatron. Diversey have a kit for this. Dont think the method is an issue as i wrote the procedure and undertook cleaning myself. maybe a bit biased to my self but i guess i could of made a human error LOL.
I have see a few articles on some values needing to be modified for certain situations, plastic, SS, porous and non porous materials. the unit im using came pre set with 300+ being a fail 150 marginal and below 150 being a pass.
Thanks guys,
Think im going to take a look at the chemicals and check concentrations from the dosatron. Diversey have a kit for this. Dont think the method is an issue as i wrote the procedure and undertook cleaning myself. maybe a bit biased to my self but i guess i could of made a human error LOL.
I have see a few articles on some values needing to be modified for certain situations, plastic, SS, porous and non porous materials. the unit im using came pre set with 300+ being a fail 150 marginal and below 150 being a pass.
Hi Khazard,
This manual contains a Procedure for estimating a baseline (Pgs 16-17) and suggested pass/fail limits for a variety of Production scenarios / surfaces using a specific brand of ATP instrument.
Guide-to-ATP-Hygiene-Monitoring-1.pdf 1.61MB 83 downloads
Hi Khazard,
It's basically simple.
If you refer to manufacturer ATP manuals, the first thing they often suggest tp do is to determine your own (semi-statistical) baseline for relevant surfaces.
Typically Involves doing IIRC a series of ca. 5 trials and a short calculation. One run is sort of meaningless.
(Some instrument Manuals do give suggested ranges for a variety of food types/surface materials but validation may be required so that ultimately can be easier to create one's own).
I agree Charles, rlu levels vary from one manufacturer to another and one food surface to another. You can take their rough guidelines but need to do the ground work yourself on establishing what rlu levels are consistent with a clean surface.
Kind regards,
Tony
...
If you refer to manufacturer ATP manuals, the first thing they often suggest tp do is to determine your own (semi-statistical) baseline for relevant surfaces.
...
Agreed, the pass/fail values need to be based on your process. Having an internal validation study where you can do some micro testing and make a correlation of acceptable micro readings to RLU values below X is going to give you some objective reasoning if anyone questions why you selected that as acceptable.
Are you certain you are not picking up something else - e.g. water, sanitation residue?
I have found in the past that the presence of these can increase my ATP score.
in my plant (honey processing for whole sale) i say ,y high range in ATP is 320.
what i consider clean/passing is anything under 200.
200-320 needs recleaning and retesting. hope that helps.
At my former facility, fish lines were under 140 and crab lines were under 400 (if I remember correctly) We took the limits from the users manual.
However, I don't put a lot of trust into them. One day, I tested the plate of a stainless steel scale. It was high. The scale was wiped down with sanitizer, retested and was higher. Cleaned AGAIN and it was even higher. We did this 3 times, then sprayed it with bleach to get a lower number.