FOod processing

Effective Sanitation = Food Safety Success

The purpose of a sanitation program is to provide a clean and sanitary environment for the handling of food products. This program must provide cleaning and sanitizing of all food handling equipment and each area of the facility in a timely manner resulting in better productivity and a reduced chance of regulatory incidences or recalls.  Having an effective sanitation program is vital to meet federal regulations.  Sanitation is important and only you and your company can determine how seriously you are going to take it.

ATP biostrategies offers risk assessments along with a variety of solutions to validate and improve your current cleaning programs.  Because your HACCP program cannot be successful without a well-developed and effective sanitation program to support it, it is advantageous to have a third-party audit and assessment of your current program and procedures to see if improvements can and should be made.  The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is the most recent and significant change for the food industry. FSMA will require the sanitation program to have specific monitoring, verification, validation, and corrective action measures in place. FDA inspectors will be inspecting records that prove those activities have occurred.  Do not wait until you have a failure to make changes.

WHAT is atp testing?

Adenosine Triphosphate, or ATP, is the energy molecule found in and around all living cells, making it a perfect indicator when trying to determine if a surface is clean or dirty.  The amount of ATP present on the surfaces tested can then be quantified by the amount of light emitted during the enzymatic reaction (relative light units, RLU).   If the ATP detection device discovers contamination, the surface can be re-cleaned immediately and retested. The rapid nature of these devices combined with their ability to detect a wide range of common public area contaminants make them a very effective way of validating your cleaning procedures.