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Regular vs. Deep Cleaning On Farm
22 Plays1 year ago
This episode features Phil Tocco, MSU Extension Produce Safety Educator, and Morgan Anderson, Michigan Conservation District Produce Safety Technician. They discuss the importance of maintaining a regular cleaning and sanitizing schedule, and provide guidance on what to pay attention to when conducting a deep clean before the season starts.
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites Podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule. Hello, everyone. I'm Morgan Anderson. I'm a produce safety technician. I was in the Ottawa Conservation District, but I service Ottawa, and Kent, and Barrie, Ionia, and a few other ones more eastward.
00:00:25
Speaker
Hi, I'm Phil Toko. I'm with the Michigan State University Extension. I'm housed in Jackson, but cover the entire state with respect to on-farm produce safety.
Importance of Regular Cleaning on Farms
00:00:33
Speaker
So I'm curious, Morgan. So why should folks regularly clean?
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, so in general, having a cleaning process and sanitizing process is important to reduce any produce safety risk that are on farm, especially for like wash pack lines. There's a lot of biofilm that can build up. And basically a biofilm is kind of like a, one time an example was given at a training I was at where it's like the film on your teeth, like at the end of the day, you can kind of feel it. That's basically a buildup of bacteria and that's a biofilm.
00:01:08
Speaker
So that can also happen on packing stuff. So taking time to scrub that off is really important. And then also making sure that bacteria doesn't get on to produce and contaminate it and get people sick.
00:01:21
Speaker
The thing about biofilm to me that I think is, or was hard for me to understand at first, is this idea between, you know, biofilms are not like dirt. I mean, they're dirt, but they're more than dirt. They're like dirt plus all sorts of other stuff. And so they're really tough to clean. They take scrubbing and they take usually some kind of soap to get themselves really ripped off. And it takes a lot of work. It's not like dirt that you can just rinse off.
Understanding the Cleaning Process for Biofilms
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like a plaque that's on there. It's not something you can just wipe off with your finger or something. The thing about biofilms is they're built over time. So if you do that regular cleaning on a day-to-day basis, you could prevent those biofilms from starting in the first place. So you can actually save yourself time in the long run if you do an everyday cleaning.
00:02:11
Speaker
So I'm curious, I know you talk about the four-step cleaning and sanitizing process, and I think that's really how biofilms really can get reduced. I'm wondering if you'd kind of enlighten us.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, I can happen to that. So yeah, it's important to remember as Phil is talking about that you can't sanitize a dirty surface. So anything with that thick biofilm on it or any visible filth or debris, that can't be sanitized with that stuff on it. So the first step of a four step cleaning and sanitizing process is removing that visible debris, that dirt, that filth,
00:02:44
Speaker
via washing and scrubbing and then after that is gone and washed off you then want to take some soap and once again use some elbow grease to really get into all the nooks and crannies or whatever you're washing whether that's a wash pack line or a harvest lug or bin you really want to make sure to get in there to remove all those biofilms and bacteria in the nooks and crannies
00:03:07
Speaker
And then after that, you're going to rinse with clean water, potable water, and remove all that soap and debris once again so it's visible of any filth. And then after that, you're going to use a sanitizer that is EPA approved for a food contact surface. And you're going to spray that or whatever method is used to apply it and let that air dry.
00:03:28
Speaker
So I guess a question for you, Phil, that I have related to sanitizer is, what is a good place to find a sanitizer that is approved for food contact surface? I know there's a list out there, it's a master list, but is there some couple easy ones off of the top of your head that you see a lot on farm?
Exploring Different Sanitizers and Their Uses
00:03:47
Speaker
So a lot of folks use chlorine because it's cheap.
00:03:50
Speaker
It's probably the cheapest of the sanitizers, but it's also, it can be really hard on a lot of metals. The only metal that seems to not degrade or rust out is stainless steel. It's good for plastics though, it's good for keeping things sanitary that way. A second class of sanitizers that are really good with produce are peroxyacetic acids or peracetic acids.
00:04:19
Speaker
They are also very corrosive, they're very expensive. Unlike chlorine, when chlorine is around, like if you take bleach and you pour it into a dirty water, the dirt itself is going to basically suck up the active chlorine that does the job. So you're not going to get that with peroxyacetic acid as much. And then the other thing too is that chlorine is very sensitive to pH.
00:04:45
Speaker
and peroxyacetic acid is not. So, you know, a lot of groundwater, a lot of well water, and sometimes even municipal water is high pH, and that actually causes problems when you're trying to mix an effective chlorine bleach, but it won't bleach solution, whereas with a PAA solution, it's not going to be that way. Right.
00:05:09
Speaker
This might be an interesting question or a stupid question, but I saw someone use hydrogen peroxide. Does that belong to one of the two classes? Or I guess maybe I just should do some research into chemically what's going on. No, it actually belongs to the parasitic acid group. So parasitic acid or it goes under the trade name Sanidate.
00:05:30
Speaker
One of the trade names is Sanidate, but we're not endorsing Sanidate, we're just using it as an example. Those formulations have both hydrogen peroxide in them, but they also have a parasitic acid mixed. So the hydrogen peroxide, when it's mixed with acidic acid, turns into a parasitic acid. So it's kind of like a buffered solution.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, man, I gotta go back to basics. It's been a long time since I've taken chemistry. That's okay. It's not a big deal. Well, you know, we got the basis comfort for you in the world. Right. Yeah. Thank you for that breakdown. That was very helpful.
Key Areas for Deep Cleaning
00:06:09
Speaker
So I'm curious to you, what areas of the farm do you think don't need to be cleaned as frequently, but should be deep cleaned before the season starts?
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, something that I've seen on farm a lot that people always say they clean pre-busy season, even if they're operating all year round, like in between their downtime of really green season or the summer season, they always deep clean their coolers and that's a lot of times
00:06:35
Speaker
scrubbing with their hands, with the elbow grease, doing their coolers to make sure there's no buildup of anything in there, checking for any leaks from the cooler itself. The bins, the previous farm I worked at, and all of our harvest bins and packing bins that were reusable, we took
00:06:54
Speaker
the whole month practically to really, yeah, it was a process. But we scrubbed those all down and then anything, any bin that was broken or damaged or beyond cleanable, we just threw out and then we added that to a list of what we needed for the upcoming season. So that's kind of nice too to take time to clean those bins and also make a log of what you need. It sounds like record keeping was built into that as well. Yeah. That's kind of cool.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it kind of was. It's like a two for one. Yeah. Well, obviously, if you're if you're doing any kind of gaps or wanting to be compliant with the physical produce safety rule, you've got to make records of those cleaning anyway. So it's a nice it is a nice step and you're going to need it anyway for to get audited or inspected. Right. So right. Makes sense to have it. So and then some other things, especially with with free tree fruit.
00:07:52
Speaker
maybe cleaning those bags that people harvest directly into or whatever method they use. Because I know that sometimes during the season, they're using them all day. And it takes a second to clean them because sometimes they're interesting material.
00:08:07
Speaker
And so I've seen that a couple of times of people saying, yep, we clean the bags once pre-season. But I wasn't sure if that was the recommendation or not. So maybe you can follow up on that. Well, the thing about pick bags, obviously, you're right. They're made of interesting material. I like that word.
00:08:23
Speaker
the material isn't always cleanable. So yeah, what we tend to recommend is yes, a once a year, like pre-harvest, you know, a serious deep clean, but then thinking about after every use, and this depends on
Cleaning Frequency and Schedules
00:08:41
Speaker
the commodity. If you're talking apples and apple pick bags, you know, wiping down the parts that every apple, like on the top, the rim that gets a lot of abuse from the apples,
00:08:52
Speaker
wiping that down with something that's that's food safe like a food safe wipe sanitizing wipe cleaning sanitizing wipe makes a lot of sense if you're dealing with a pick bucket like like in blueberries um there's a lot of ways that blueberry folks deal or choose to deal with that surface inside the buckets
00:09:11
Speaker
Some folks use plastic bag liners, others wipe them out with a sanitary cloth, like a wet, essentially a wet wipe after every dump. And then lugs really should be run through, cleaned every day. Now the nice thing is we've got some really good equipment these days, especially for small farmers that can run those lugs through like an AZS rinse conveyor. And it's just like a dishwasher. So it's kind of nice.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, you're kind of getting into like once again establishing that
00:09:46
Speaker
differentiation between regular cleaning and the like daily upkeep, like how you're mentioning wiping down where the apples are hitting the harvest bag and cleaning those bins every day and just preventing that buildup of harmful bacteria and pathogens that you're kind of describing. And then there's the deep clean where it's like really taking the equipment apart, taking the time to get in all the nooks and crannies. So there really is that differentiation between regular upkeep to prevent
00:10:14
Speaker
a really bad situation, produce safety risk-wise, and then taking the time to really deep clean with that. It's important, too, to think about how wet the produce is when it touches the surface that you're trying to clean. The wetter the surface, the wetter the produce contact, the greater the chance there's going to be a lot of microbial activity.
00:10:38
Speaker
So you're going to get a lot of transfer, you're going to get a lot of growth in areas that have a lot of wetness. Versus if it's dry, if you're picking something that's dry into a dry bucket or a dry bin, that's going to be a very different amount of transfer that could potentially happen. Right. Is there anything else that you're thinking of when it comes to deep cleaning or cleaning larger equipment?
00:11:08
Speaker
Sure. So one of the things that we encourage folks to do, if they've got a line that uses rollers, either brush rollers or conveyor rollers made out of PVC that are conveying produce down the line, we encourage folks to think about getting a second set of rollers.
00:11:27
Speaker
and move and so basically what they can do and this is going to take some work because it's not easy to take out rollers but the idea is to have an extra set of rollers that you can then swap in that are already clean and then pull out the dirty rollers.
00:11:43
Speaker
So instead of, and this again is not an everyday thing. This would be something done once a week and then somebody invests time into cleaning the rollers they took out so that they're clean and dry and allowed to air dry.
Organizing with a Master Sanitation Schedule
00:11:58
Speaker
The importance of air drying cannot be overstated. Sometimes the sanitizers work best when they're air dried completely. Sometimes sanitizers need that. So definitely air drying is important.
00:12:11
Speaker
Especially with material like wood, that needs to air dry, to dry completely, really. You bet. You bet. Absolutely. In fact, that will make it a more sanitary surface than it would otherwise be. Right. We like that. I have seen folks, and I know you and I have talked about this separately, about this idea of using a tool that's used in the food processing industry, this idea of a master sanitation schedule.
00:12:41
Speaker
And the idea is if you can imagine a map of your own facility or your own packhouse area and things that get cleaned on a daily basis are colored one thing, things that are cleaned on a weekly basis are colored another color. And then those things that are cleaned once a year are colored a third color so that folks can easily tell what needs cleaning when and how. Right. So yeah, I definitely think that helps for the sake of
00:13:10
Speaker
organization and making sure everyone's on the same page. There was a girl I have who has a schedule and right now it's just one person but the thing about hiring more people I'm like well that schedule is gonna be really helpful for when you're hiring more people and you have more staff that they're gonna know what is supposed to be cleaned when and how like you said so. Can you talk a little bit about pressure washers because I feel like this is a very mixed a very
00:13:37
Speaker
many opinions on pressure washers.
Tools and Techniques for Maintaining Hygiene
00:13:39
Speaker
You bet. They do a great job at taking off dirt. The problem is they also do a great job of spraying dirt everywhere that the water goes. So whatever you're getting off that surface is going all over the place. So that's why we generally don't recommend high pressure washing.
00:13:56
Speaker
that really the idea is to use a low pressure wash to move the dirt off without basically atomizing it and spreading it in clouds across the pack house. And even within that low pressure wash, whether that's a hose or whatever, cleaning from top to bottom is important as well as making sure that as you go top to bottom, everything is working its way down and you're not spreading anything.
00:14:25
Speaker
else. Anyways, you kind of reverse it in your effort. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, this is also a question or a conversation we had before is about tool storage. And we're talking about cleaning and sanitizing, but what about the tools used for that? What is your recommended process for cleaning those tools, replacing them?
00:14:48
Speaker
and storing them as well. I know one big tip is just keeping them off the floor, whether that's having some hooks designated for them. But yeah, I was kind of wondering what other tips and tricks you got regarding those tools for the cleaning process itself. Absolutely. So first off, having dedicated tools for dedicated surfaces.
00:15:05
Speaker
I mean, you can get two brushes that work really well, and one may be used, the same brush may be used for the toilet to clean the toilet well, and to clean the conveyor belts well. And you don't want to use the same brush, the exact same brush for that. So different people use different colors that you can either buy different colored brushes,
00:15:30
Speaker
Or you can use different colored duct tapes to duct tape the handles of a brush for a given job. Like I have down in my basement where the cat litter sits, I have a mop and a broom that are only used for cat litter. So I've marked those with duct tape so that I know that.
00:15:52
Speaker
And it makes it nice and easy. That's a cheap way. Now, a more expensive way, obviously, is to buy color-coded brushes. And certainly, for larger food establishments, that makes a lot of sense. But for small guys, just a little bit of duct tape goes a long way.
00:16:08
Speaker
Another thing, back to your friend who's got maybe hiring new people. Another thing that I've seen growers do that works really well is using a visual SOP to show what the set to zero looks like. The idea of when you walk in in the morning, this is what the pack house should look like.
00:16:31
Speaker
So before you leave, it needs to look like this. So they have pictures and it works really well. It helps really convey a lot of really good things. Right, it kind of gives that example of...
00:16:43
Speaker
the opening shot, but also the closing shift as well, in comparison of what you should start with and what it should end with, for sure. And it makes it easy for a manager to go, okay, so this was the picture, this is how we found it in the morning, and we need you to fix this, this, and this. Can you see how those are different from the picture? Right. Oh yeah, okay, we can do that. Right.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, just visuals in general, I think are so helpful. Like what you mentioned, the color coding. You bet. So many ways visuals can be utilized in not only cleaning processes, but just organizing and scheduling around that. And the nice thing I've heard from managers around that whole idea of color coding, different pieces, different brushes and stuff is that the managers can watch the crew and not have to ask them, is that the brush that you used on the toilet? Because they'll know from just looking at the brush
00:17:34
Speaker
that it was oh that's the toilet brush okay that's the food contact surface brush one time my mom she oh my gosh i hope she doesn't listen to this but even if she does she'll fly a lot but she cleaned the floor with pine soil and she put it in a Tupperware bowl because i don't know what happened to the
00:17:52
Speaker
like the mop bucket. I don't know. Maybe she was using it somewhere else and forgot it at the different, I don't know. But so she put pine soil in there. And then a couple of days later, we were eating watermelon. I was like, why does this taste like chemically soapy? Um, and then she was like, Oh my gosh, that's the boy I used the other day to clean the forest. That's horrible. And yet, so true. That's the way we think sometimes.
00:18:14
Speaker
We don't really realize that what we're using is a food contact thing. So we have to pay attention to what we're using for each thing.
00:18:24
Speaker
on farm and in your kitchen. Yup. Yup. Links to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.