Maintenance Shop Refrigerator

Hi there. 

We had a large/normal sized refrigerator in our receiving office for samples and it stopped working for the most part/the seals weren't in good shape. When maintenance replaced the fridge, they brought it upon themselves to put the old fridge in the maintenance shop. I did not like this and felt it was kind of a GMP violation. 

I found food in there 1 time and that was it for me. I wanted it out of there. We just had a maintenance guy throw an absolute fit about it. He literally threw the fridge out of the door. 

I could not find anything in the SQF code point-blank that says they could not have this. We also follow the PMO. 

I need some hard black and white rules to shove in their face quickly - PLEASE HELP 

This exact situation happened to me. The (NSF) inspector made us build walls to close off the area even though the fridge was in the warehouse.

The presence of a fridge made this area a "break room" in the inspector's eyes.

I found this in SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing, Edition 9

11.3.5.9 Separate break rooms shall be provided away from food contact/handling zones.

Break rooms shall be:

• i. Ventilated and well lit;
• ii. Provided with adequate tables and seating to cater for the maximum number of staff at one sitting;
• iii. Equipped with a sink serviced with hot and cold potable water for washing utensils;
• iv. Equipped with refrigeration and heating facilities, enabling staff to store or heat food and to prepare non-alcoholic beverages if required; and
• v. Kept clean and free from waste materials and pests.

If the warehouse is a food handling area, or if you store food there, it is pretty clearly a GMP violation.

You can't control what allergens employees store there, and there is not likely a handwashing station where they placed the fridge.

In my travels as an auditor I ran into a lot of maintenance shops that had a frig in them, when I told them either they had to go thru the steps to designate the area a break room and all that it would entail the frig normally made an exit on the spot - but of course not until countless threw a fit about it.

I am sure however that the frig's promptly re-appeared the next day after the audit.

I remember walking thru a coffee roasting company and there were contractors working and one of them had an incredibly large and quite beautiful rolling tool chest that had a mini fridge, microwave open and TV built in - that was something, and when it was not in use you could not tell any of those things were present - cept that one of the guys decided to slide open a door and exposed the fridge, took out a Healthy Meal and popped it into the microwave - there was fireworks that day from the QA Manager that was walking around with me.

 

 We just had a maintenance guy throw an absolute fit about it. He literally threw the fridge out of the door. 

 

Sounds like problem solved to me!   Lol....