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The following article is submitted by The Sali Group for the benefit of our Food Processors. January 4, 2010
With the recent attention to food safety and quality in the news, it is reasonable to expect increased scrutiny of our country’s food production and processing systems. Michigan Agribusiness is the second largest industry in our state. A food safety incident would have large impact on our overall economy and risk demand shift from our state as a high quality provider of food products.
At the core of most food production operations is the use of water. Clean, fresh, high quality water is required in almost every food-derived product manufactured in Michigan. Most facilities monitor water quality at the source point to the plant. With the importance of clean water, it begs the question for each facility “Is our facility water system protected from sources of contamination within our facility?”
To answer that with surety, a facility should review their operation to the following general considerations with the intent to develop and maintain a full Water Safety and Reliability (WS&R) Program.
- Detailed water flow diagram (schematic and dimensional)
- Detailed water balance (flow)
- Point of use contamination potential
- Protected secondary source of supply
- Physical separation between water source and potential contamination processes
- Contact and non-contact water systems
A WS&R Program should be audited annually by internal personnel and documented for third party audits (Michigan Department of Community Health, USDA, others). The WS&R Program can be separated into two areas of focus: Quantity and Quality.
Quantity:
Simply defined as adequate water supply (pressure and volume) at all use points. Many facilities experience low-pressure periods during CIP or peak processing. This low pressure may impact cleaning quality, production rates and in extreme cases, serve as the cause of cross contamination.
Quality:
Defined as water characteristics necessary to meet federal, state and local guidelines for the intended use points. A well-managed system for quality has common characteristics with design (and install) that includes frequents turnover, barriers at points of contamination, appropriate materials of construction and system identification.
Typically a program can be developed from much of the data that you may already have on hand and should take no longer than a month to assemble and finalize. If contracted, an outside vendor can draft the program for less than $3500 for most facilities. Development of support documents (schematics, balances, other) will vary with existing facility data, but in most cases will cost less than $10,000 to prepare in detail.
In closing, a well run WS&R Program provides a verifiable and documented system that ensures an adequate quantity of clean, fresh water at every use point and has no risk of contamination of the final food product.
By The Associated Press, As seen on MLive.com
December 28, 2009, 11:00AM
TRAVERSE CITY — An area fruit processor may solve a growing, expensive problem: how the industry treats its water waste.
Grawn-based Cherry Growers Inc. will spend at least $100,000 to pilot the use of air-sparging.
“It’s pretty cool and nice that they are doing this,” said Janice Heuer, an environmental engineer in the Cadillac office of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. “It could address a problem that’s pretty common up here with food processors.”
Click Here for the Full story on MLive.com
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