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Cross Contamination with Shared Equipment
17 Plays2 years ago
This month, Produce Safety Technicians Landen Tetil and Breanna Hannula discuss the cross contamination risks with shared equipment. This could be a tractor used in both livestock and produce areas, or a sink you use to wash both eggs and fresh produce. Listen up on this episode of Produce Bites!
Additional Resources:
Article: Tips On Shared-Use Equipment in The Wash-Pack
Article: Risks of Cross Contamination Via Shared Equipment on Mixed-Use Farms
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 Podcast and Hosts
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, I am Landon Teagle and I am a produce safety technician with the Marquette County Conservation District and I serve produce farms in regards to their on-farm food safety across the entire Upper Peninsula.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brianna Hanula. I am the Produce Safety Technician based at the Grant Travers Conservation District, and I provide food safety education resources for farmers in the northern part of mainland Michigan.
00:00:45
Speaker
I've never heard it be called mainland Michigan. Is that like the right word for it? Like, you know, the Lower Peninsula? Yeah, Lower Peninsula. Mainland. Come on. I like mainland. You're an island up there. We're attached to Wisconsin. Right, but you know, like on the Michigan, you're an island. That's funny.
Cross-Contamination Risks on Mixed Farms
00:01:08
Speaker
So today we got together today to talk about the kind of risks, the food safety that we sometimes see or encounter on produce farms in regards to shared equipment. So this, you know, we're talking about tractors or tools or even spaces
00:01:32
Speaker
buildings or other spaces that get used for multiple things on a farm. And I think that this is a pretty common occurrence across farms. In general, I think a lot of farms try to get multiple uses out of a lot of their things to be efficient and also to save time and money. So I think it's a pretty common thing. And all farms face the risk of cross-contamination to some level, right?
00:02:02
Speaker
animals exist in the wild and so every farm has got to deal with animals whether it's you know animals out in the field or maybe more like insect and rodent type scale on indoor facilities either way you're dealing with some sort of cross-contamination. Most farms also have people that work on them and so humans are a huge source of cross-contamination as well as things like water and
00:02:29
Speaker
you know, things like that. But today we're going to be focusing on equipment. And I think that while all farms face cross-contamination risk, some farms have greater risks than others, especially when it comes to sharing equipment. Right. So a farm that raises livestock and grows produce faces challenges that a solely produce operation does not. Animals are a major source of fecal contamination.
00:02:59
Speaker
and that fecal material can present a significant danger to raw produce. So when equipment is shared in different areas of the farm, it is important to consider cross-contamination. However, it is possible to safely grow produce when livestock are nearby, so long as basic principles of produce safety are followed.
Challenges and Solutions for Small Farms
00:03:17
Speaker
The first step is to maintain complete physical exclusion of the animals from the produce areas. Sturdy and permanent fencing that is suitable for the type of animal contained is crucial. Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
For those of you listening, you might be able to tell that Brianna has a lot of experience in livestock. And so she's a really great resource to have in this conversation. And I think a lot of farms, especially small scale farms, like a lot of the farms that I work with here in the UP,
00:03:52
Speaker
They do both, you know, they do it all. They raise animals and they also raise or grow produce and maybe even a few other things, agricultural products on the side. So I think it's super common, especially in smaller scale farms, to see these kinds of mixed use spaces and uses. And so understanding
00:04:20
Speaker
what type of fencing is suitable for which kinds of animals and realizing that sometimes they will test their limits, whether they're bored or hungry is pretty valuable information to have. Right. And additionally, on that point, it would be important to consider that when the animals break out is more so a question of if they will break out. And so having procedures in mind for what happens that
00:04:50
Speaker
when the cattle decide they no longer wish to stay in their pen rather than holding on to the hope that that will never happen because they're animals and you can't always control everything about them. Grass is always greener on the other side.
Personal Protective Equipment and Clothing Risks
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't have a ton of experience in managing livestock, but I know that you do Brianna and I'm wondering have you, what kind of instances or examples have you seen where sharing the same equipment on a farm that does both, that has animals and produce where it's resulted in a problem?
00:05:34
Speaker
I guess an important consideration is not just the physical equipment that you use on the farm, but also the worker and what they wear, right? So clothing, gloves, boots, and PPE that is worn in livestock areas shouldn't be worn in produce areas without first being cleaned and sanitized. The easiest way to go about doing this is to just have separate pairs of each of those items. Have two pairs of boots, one pair for the livestock areas and one pair for the produce areas.
00:06:04
Speaker
That way you don't have to worry about scrubbing them in between. Yeah, so you're saving time there, which is just as valuable as money.
Tractors as a Contamination Vector
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point Brianna. What about, so if we're thinking kind of larger whole farm scale, what comes to mind for me are tractors because tractors are so versatile. They have so many uses on a farm. Do you want to talk about some potential risks there with using the same tractor or the same tractor without cleaning it in between?
00:06:43
Speaker
So tractors are such a versatile piece of equipment. However, on a livestock and produce farm, it's very important to consider that the equipment will act as a vector for contamination. And vector means carrier. And so the easiest example to think about this is the tires on the tractor. So I'm going to paint a quick little scenario here. So picture a tractor.
00:07:12
Speaker
And it was driven into a pen to scoop manure. And obviously while driving around in the pen, the tires picked up manure on the treads. The tractor was then driven into the apple orchard. And small pieces of manure flew off and landed on the ground while the tractor was driving. Now you may think that this isn't a big deal because the manure stays on the ground.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, no big problem. The apples are up in the tree, right? Right, exactly. But what about when October rolls around and the harvester crews walk through the orchard and they step in the little pieces of manure. And while harvesting, they climb up and down the ladders, and now each rung has little bits of manure on it. The harvester places their hands on the rungs to climb the ladder, then reaches and picks an apple. That apple is now contaminated with raw manure, even if you can't see it.
00:08:02
Speaker
That is a good point. I think the most, maybe the most important point that you just made is that sometimes you can't always see it. You know, we can't see bacteria with just our eyes and it doesn't take very much to make a person sick. So that's a really important point to remember.
00:08:24
Speaker
I feel like that scenario that you just described is so common and is so easily replicated across lots of different areas of the farm. I know of one scenario where a farm was, they were in an area with raw manure, I'm not sure if they were
00:08:47
Speaker
scooping or turning manure or something but they had definitely driven through an area with raw manure and then that same tractor was driven down a driveway with lots of puddles in it. It had rained recently and then you know driven up to the wash pack station and
00:09:08
Speaker
the puddles that had come into contact with the tractor tires, enough of the bacteria from the raw manure had transferred to those puddles that the workers that then stepped through the puddles to enter the wash pack actually brought listeria into that wash pack station.
00:09:30
Speaker
a big problem ensued. And so that is another real life example of where this cross-contamination actually does happen. And it's something that farms that do both should be thinking about, even if it seems kind of silly or far-fetched. Something as simple as sharing a driveway doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal. But here in this example, it absolutely can be.
Mitigating Equipment Contamination
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, and water loves to move things. So yeah, just the puddles being contaminated was enough to cause a problem in that case.
00:10:11
Speaker
Going back to your orchard scenario for just a second, I was thinking about ways that you could still use that same tractor, but it wouldn't pose the same kind of risks. And the first thing that comes to my mind is the ladder situation. You said the workers were climbing up the ladder and putting their hands on the same part of the ladder, the rungs,
00:10:38
Speaker
where their feet go. And a super quick and easy fix is just to train those orchard workers to put their hands on the side railings of the ladder and never on the rungs where their feet go. And that would solve a lot of that problem. I'm just wondering, Brianna, do you have another mitigation idea for that sort of situation?
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, so the most clear and safe option would be to have separate machinery designated for each task of the farm. Right, have one for the raw manure type situation and then have one that can be driven in the produce operation. However, that is not always feasible, especially on smaller farms. That sounds expensive. Exactly, yes.
00:11:31
Speaker
If one machine with one bucket is the only option, it's important to integrate a thorough cleaning and sanitizing SOP of the exterior and any surfaces that the operator might touch as well. Yeah, so you're saying clean and sanitize the tractor after it's been used for animal or raw manure purposes before it goes into a produce related use.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And I would also highly recommend documentation in a sanitation log so that you could be certain that it has been cleaned before being anywhere else on the farm. Sure. Keep a record of it. If it's not written down, it never happened. Exactly.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that another option, assuming that you're starting out with a tractor that's been cleaned, if it's possible to do the produce work first, then you can just drive it straight into the manure pen and you don't have to do the cleaning and sanitizing if you're going from produce to animals, only vice versa.
00:12:45
Speaker
Right, absolutely. I guess I wanted to just mention too that I feel like we've been focusing pretty heavily on tractors, but the same principles apply to all kinds of equipment. If you are a farm that's at the scale where maybe you're not using a tractor for everything, then we're talking about shovels and garden carts.
00:13:13
Speaker
you know, other smaller scale equipment like that, the same principles apply to that. And on that scale, it's almost easier because you can easily afford two shovels or two pitchforks or, you know, whatever, two pairs of boots. And that's a lot more feasible than owning two tractors for a lot of farms.
Managing Wash Pack Facilities
00:13:38
Speaker
Definitely. And those smaller equipment are arguably much easier to clean than the entirety of a tractor.
00:13:44
Speaker
For sure. Yeah, I'm thinking about like just timewise, like how fast you could scrub off a shovel versus spraying down an entire tractor. Yes, much, much easier for the shovel.
00:13:58
Speaker
So I wanted to make sure that we touch on like what happens once that produce is harvested too and what types of shared equipment we might see in a wash pack facility. So I think that most farms that grow produce have some sort of space, you know, maybe it's not a building, but they have some sort of designated space where they rinse off and
00:14:27
Speaker
or wash and pack their produce before it's sold. And in some cases, that space might also be used for non-produce related activities. So one thing that I tend to see a lot is farms that have laying hens
00:14:49
Speaker
will wash their eggs in the same sink where they're washing their vegetables. And while that might not seem like a big deal, I feel like the same, the same exact principles that we just talked about for, you know, the tractors and shovels and boots and outdoor equipment, the same principles apply. So if you're washing, you know, if you're washing your eggs to sell them in, you know, the sink that you have available to you,
00:15:17
Speaker
say that you're a farm with only one sink, maybe one wash sink and one hand wash sink, and then you go and immediately fill up that sink and dunk your leafy greens in it. That's actually a huge risk because you're washing off all of the chicken poop that was on those eggs and the little bits of straw or bedding or whatever. And there's a huge risk
00:15:42
Speaker
or potential for a lot of that bacteria to still be in the sink when you fill it up to wash your produce. So if a grower does want to wash their eggs and their leafy greens in the same day, what procedures would you recommend so that they can do this in the safest way possible?
00:15:58
Speaker
I would say you can either do a clean break after you've washed your eggs or even like washed your uncovered produce, so produce that's not covered under the produce safety rule, before you move on to covered produce. And that's the rinse, clean with a detergent rinse again, sanitize. And then if the sanitizer calls for it, let dry, you know, the full four or five step process. So that's one option.
00:16:28
Speaker
The other option is to start out with a clean sink and clean tables and what have you and do your covered produce first. Get that out of the way and then move on to your uncovered produce and then do the eggs last. And so kind of moving in order from the things that need to be cleanest to the ones that aren't going to be harmed, their microbial safety isn't going to be compromised.
00:16:58
Speaker
if you don't implement that full cleaning break. The third option is separate equipment. So if you can afford to have two different sinks and one can be designated as a sink that is only for washing your eggs,
00:17:19
Speaker
and the other sink is for produce, that's great. That's amazing. I understand that that's not an immediate possibility for all farms though. And as much as I love the ease of just separate equipment,
00:17:40
Speaker
I'm also not a big fan of telling farms that they've got to run out and spend more money in order to maintain their food safety because it's not always true. You know, you can make do with what you have.
Effective Planning and SOPs for Farms
00:17:52
Speaker
It's just gonna be, you're gonna have to think about the way, the order in which you do things and you're gonna have to think about cleaning a little bit more. I feel like so much of the produce safety rule is just thinking about the risks
00:18:09
Speaker
and thinking about what you're going to do about them. Absolutely. A lot of it is about planning for potential contamination. Know what steps you should take in the event that contamination does occur. And yes, really being able to foresee when and where that is most likely to happen.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I see the benefit in, you know, doing this ahead of time, like coming up with your corrective action plans and your standard operating procedures, coming up with those at a time where you can like sit down and really think about them. You know, dead of winter, there's four feet of snow outside, but you're inside with a cup of coffee. That's the perfect time to think about these things.
00:18:56
Speaker
And in my experience, those types of well thought out procedures are far more effective than what you can come up with in the moment. Having that farm food safety plan to fall back on also makes it easier if you, as the most knowledgeable grower, are not the one on site, right? What if it's one of your employees on site and who has to deal with it? And you can refer them to the information that you had already planned out.
00:19:25
Speaker
Definitely. Yep,
Conclusion and Future Resources
00:19:28
Speaker
you don't have to leave it up to your employees or your kids or your father-in-law to do the right thing because you've already thought about it and it's written down for them to just say, oh yes, this is what I have to do.
00:19:43
Speaker
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.