So, I've been away from the food safety side of things for 2+ years and maybe I need to realign my thinking again. I am going through this facility's previous year SQF audit to make sure we are still following agreed upon corrections and came across one I am having trouble reconciling with logic.
Facility lunchroom, with a clearly marked 'ok to walk to with food' (non-GMP) path. It has lockable lockers for our employees to store their personal effects, and LUNCH. The auditor said it was against code to store lunch in lockers in the lunchroom. The section of code they cited:
11.3.5.2 Change rooms shall be provided to enable staff and visitors to change into and out of protective clothing as required. Change rooms shall be kept clean.
The NC was appealed all the way up through the chain, with a final ruling of denied because "the facility did not provide evidence of a procedure or stated checks they conduct to reduce risk." However, I noticed our pest control procedure was listed as evidence we are minimizing risk and monitoring (also internal GMP audits).
To comply to their final ruling, we put up a 'no food in lockers' sign.
Here's the crux of this long post: I think this is a completely BS take on the code, and I feel enforcing misguided rulings like this does more food safety harm than good, but I'm at a loss as to what more I can do. I got into compliance because I hated stupid rules, and this really seems like I am not enforcing a stupid rule with not allowing food in lunchroom lockers.
I don't really expect a direct route forward from anyone, but maybe some outside the box ideas from you guys can help me wrap my head around this one.