0.2 Food safety: introduction to product contamination control  (Page 2/4)

• washing hands
• identifying illnesses
• spotting cuts, boils, and septic sores
• preventing contamination by foreign bodies
• wearing protective clothing.

Personal hygiene

All staff must practice good personal hygiene.

Effectively washing hands and overall good personal hygiene practices will significantly minimize the risk of microbiological contamination of the product.

Hands must be washed

• upon entering a food handling or processing area
• immediately after using the toilet
• after handling raw food or any contaminated material when such could result in contamination of other food items
• after using a handkerchief
• after eating, drinking or smoking
• after handling equipment cleaning or equipment cleaning utensils
• after handling chemicals.

Since fingernails may harbor bacteria, they must be kept short and clean.

Personal behaviors

Illness

You must be able to quickly identify any staff members who may be ill and can cause food borne illness for consumers. Your staff should be aware that they need to report any illnesses and that a decision is required by you, as the food safety manger, as to whether to allow them to begin work.

Illnesses such as colds and influenza should also be considered since coughs and sneezes can carry droplet infection for a considerable distance. Persons with bad coughs should not handle open foods.

To prevent contamination of food by harmful bacteria, blood cuts, spots, and sores must be completely covered by a waterproof dressing, preferably colored blue to aid detection if the dressing should become detached.

Foreign Bodies

Your staff must control foreign bodies:

• jeweler
• fingernails
• hair
• buttons
• pen tops
• soiled plasters
• fibers and cloth.

The risk of these potential foreign body contaminants can be easily reduced or removed by informing and training your staff of the risks and emphasizing the importance of monitoring in the workplace.

Protective Clothing

Hair nets or hats should be worn to prevent to risk of contamination by hair.

Food handlers must wear clean and washable protective clothing, preferably light-colored without external pockets. Press-studs or Velcro fastening are preferable to buttons. Your staff must be aware that protective clothing is worn to protect the food from risk of contamination, not to keep their own clothes clean.

Monitoring of personal hygiene practices

All food handlers must be aware of the hygiene hazards associated with their job and controls necessary to ensure the safety of food produced. An awareness program should be implemented to ensure the competency of all food handlers to produce safe food.

Supervision and monitoring of staff hygiene practices should be carried out.

All records should be kept of all staff awareness programs, with particular emphasis on supervisory staff.

Cross contamination

Poor quality raw materials and inappropriate packaging are one of the leading causes of product contamination.

The use of poor raw materials and inadequate safety procedures will significantly increase the probability of microbiological contamination.