9 replies to this topic

[Miss Frankie]

Is there anything wrong with doing environmental swabbing after a weekend?
Our production rooms clean when production is finished each day and Sterilex when they are done on Friday (or Saturday).

In order to swab when production is processing the product we want to sent for sampling, we need to do our Pre-Op swabs first thing Monday morning.
I was asked if there is anything wrong with that after the rooms has sat for a day.  
I thought it was a good test to know things are clean over the weekend.

 

Thoughts?

[MaxwellPearson]

Hi Miss Frankie,

 

I actually had a conversation with a 3rd party auditor about this recently. Our facility runs Mon-Fri and I typically come in Sunday evening to do environmental swabs (because we start very early on Monday, so it avoids conflicts with production's startup). He said there is technically no issue with doing zone 1 swabs after the weekend, but you need to consider 1) if the equipment is not fully cleaned, the longer it sits before testing, the higher your results will be and 2) dust/other particulate settling over the weekend and re-contaminating the surfaces. As for zones 2-4, I was told they should always be done during production. 

 

This was the advice of one auditor, but I don't believe there is any specific rule about it. We do it at this facility and it has never been an issue, but of course you should assess it yourself. When we made the switch from swabbing late Friday night to Sunday night we did it for 2 months and compared our results to previous results and found no significant difference, so I would suggest trying it out.

 

Hope this helps!

[Miss Frankie]

Hi Miss Frankie,

 

I actually had a conversation with a 3rd party auditor about this recently. Our facility runs Mon-Fri and I typically come in Sunday evening to do environmental swabs (because we start very early on Monday, so it avoids conflicts with production's startup). He said there is technically no issue with doing zone 1 swabs after the weekend, but you need to consider 1) if the equipment is not fully cleaned, the longer it sits before testing, the higher your results will be and 2) dust/other particulate settling over the weekend and re-contaminating the surfaces. As for zones 2-4, I was told they should always be done during production. 

 

This was the advice of one auditor, but I don't believe there is any specific rule about it. We do it at this facility and it has never been an issue, but of course you should assess it yourself. When we made the switch from swabbing late Friday night to Sunday night we did it for 2 months and compared our results to previous results and found no significant difference, so I would suggest trying it out.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

Thanks.  
Our production area is super clean, so I don't see a problem with swabbing after a day off. 
We swab Pre, Op, and Post in all zones, not every time, as we rotate what is swabbed, but we get everything at least once per cycle.

[nwilson]

What swabbing is being performed?  Allergen Specific, Proteins, Environmental, ATP....just curious to the process.  I was at a site where we did pre-operational inspections on a Sunday, after cleaning was one on Friday night - Saturday morning.  We were performing allergen, protein indicators, and ATP and there was no significant issues with this process at this bakery operation.  Environmentals were performed quarterly.  

[Miss Frankie]

What swabbing is being performed?  Allergen Specific, Proteins, Environmental, ATP....just curious to the process.  I was at a site where we did pre-operational inspections on a Sunday, after cleaning was one on Friday night - Saturday morning.  We were performing allergen, protein indicators, and ATP and there was no significant issues with this process at this bakery operation.  Environmentals were performed quarterly.  

Environmentals.  We swab monthly, and testing is for ATP, Yeast & Mold, and Listeria.
We do in-house swabbing as needed for allergens.

[nwilson]

Environmentals.  We swab monthly, and testing is for ATP, Yeast & Mold, and Listeria.
We do in-house swabbing as needed for allergens.

 

Then I would do what maxwellpearson suggested already, make the switch and compare your results as time progresses.  

 

Hi Miss Frankie,

 

I actually had a conversation with a 3rd party auditor about this recently. Our facility runs Mon-Fri and I typically come in Sunday evening to do environmental swabs (because we start very early on Monday, so it avoids conflicts with production's startup). He said there is technically no issue with doing zone 1 swabs after the weekend, but you need to consider 1) if the equipment is not fully cleaned, the longer it sits before testing, the higher your results will be and 2) dust/other particulate settling over the weekend and re-contaminating the surfaces. As for zones 2-4, I was told they should always be done during production. 

 

This was the advice of one auditor, but I don't believe there is any specific rule about it. We do it at this facility and it has never been an issue, but of course you should assess it yourself. When we made the switch from swabbing late Friday night to Sunday night we did it for 2 months and compared our results to previous results and found no significant difference, so I would suggest trying it out.

 

Hope this helps!

 

[Miss Frankie]

Then I would do what maxwellpearson suggested already, make the switch and compare your results as time progresses.  

 

We typically swab Tuesday or Wednesday. These are SUPPOSED to be our November swabs  but with the Thanksgiving holiday, then I got hurt and missed a couple days (not work related) our timing got messed up.  So we're doing them on Monday.  
We only work 4 days a week, have to send swabs by Wednesday, and have to time it to get the correct product and have time to get Pre & Post swabs done the same time,  so that doesn't leave us a lot of time.

[mgourley]

One of our customers requires that zones 2-4 (we don't do zone 1) be swabbed 3-4 hours after production starts. (Salmonella and Listeria)

 

Marshall

[Tony-C]

Is there anything wrong with doing environmental swabbing after a weekend?
Our production rooms clean when production is finished each day and Sterilex when they are done on Friday (or Saturday).

In order to swab when production is processing the product we want to sent for sampling, we need to do our Pre-Op swabs first thing Monday morning.
I was asked if there is anything wrong with that after the rooms has sat for a day.  
I thought it was a good test to know things are clean over the weekend.

 

Thoughts?

 

Hi Miss Frankie,

 

I don’t see any problem with that and it would highlight any issues with leaving equipment/plant over the weekend. For food contact equipment, a lot of sites would disinfect or run a full clean prior to start up on a Monday, depending on the product.

 

In an ideal world, I would take the worst-case scenarios for your swabbing, so just before start of operations after the weekend and when sampling/sabbing during production, towards the end of the production run.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[Bo16]

We have 2 different programs, one for indicator organism APC, Coliforms and Yeast & Mold:  here we swab clean equipment including zone one.  We do not hold product for this testing although all products are tested for micro so they would never be released prior to environmental swabbing results.  We have a second program for Pathogens, Salmonella and Listeria.  This we swab prior to start of production and then again half way through the shift (approx. 4 hrs).  We do not swab zone one for pathogens.

 

As far as timing:  We swab like we clean.  The longest time we leave a clean blending room without re-cleaning and sanitizing is 3 days,  so for a few Holidays we have Fri, Sat, Sunday off so we swab on Monday or Sat, Sun, Monday off and swab on Tuesday.  Therefore we validated our cleaning for that time frame and can swab that time frame during routine swabbing for both Environmental indicators and pathogens.