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Clean Breaks
85 Plays5 months ago
In this episode, Produce Safety Technicians Landen Tetil and Patrick Gordon talk about establishing a clean break. They discuss what is and isn't a clean break, why a clean break is important for food safety, and what it has to do with traceability.
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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.
Meet the Technicians
00:00:13
Speaker
Hi, I'm Landon Teedle, Produce Safety Technician based out of the Marquette County Conservation District, and I serve all of the Upper Peninsula farmers in regards to on-farm food safety technical assistance.
00:00:28
Speaker
And hello, I am Patrick Gordon. I am the produce safety technician for Southwest Michigan, and I'm housed in the Berrien County Conservation District. And I cover Berrien, Kalamazoo, Allegan, Van Buren counties, and the counties east of the lake as well. East of the lake. Yes. East of the lake. Well, aren't they all east of the lake?
00:00:55
Speaker
I guess you're right. The county's east of that as well. And you're, yes, like Michigan. Yeah, okay. The Big Lake, Michigan. There's a lot of lakes around here. I've got the biggest one. You do have the biggest one up to the north. Anyway, not a competition. I just only have the best, most superior lake. That is definitely superior. It is superior. Quite literally.
Understanding Clean Breaks
00:01:26
Speaker
So we were getting together today to have ourselves a little chat about clean breaks. Do you want to start us off with a clean break definition? When I think of clean breaks, I'm thinking of when we are on the farm, when we are stopping, what we're doing to literally clean and sanitize our work surface, our food contact surfaces.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little bit funny, but I was talking about clean breaks with a grower not too long ago and didn't take the time to define it. And throughout this entire conversation we were having in their minds, they thought that I was talking about the time between
00:02:16
Speaker
after one clean before the next clean, like the break, just kind of funny. But yes, what we actually mean is that full break in the flow of production or flow of use for a surface so it can be fully cleaned and sanitized. Right. And most of the time, that's going to be all the equipment that are being used in that process as well.
How to Perform a Clean Break
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:45
Speaker
It's usually a four or five step process, right? So number one, we have either brushing or sweeping or rinsing off any bigger dirt or debris from the surface to start off with and then number two,
00:03:01
Speaker
we have actually washing that surface with a food grade detergent and actually scrubbing that surface with a detergent. And then number three would be rinsing all of that soap and the grime off again with the clean water source. And then number four, we're applying a sanitizer. And then the sometimes number five step is really dependent on what kind of sanitizer you're using, but some sanitizers require a final rinse step after application.
00:03:31
Speaker
while others just require an air dry step. A really good point, Landon. And it is important to read the instructions on the sanitizer that you are using in order to make sure that you are, in fact, sanitizing your work surfaces properly. I guess that leads me to the next obvious question. What is not a clean break, Patrick?
00:03:54
Speaker
Well, I guess there are a lot of things that are not a clean break. Any, any stop that doesn't include all of those steps are not going to be an actual clean break. You do need to include every single one of those four steps. Sometimes five. Sometimes five. Depends on what kind of sanitizing. But yeah, yeah, I feel like a lot of times, um, it can be easy to be like, Oh, well, I mean, I rinsed it and it looks clean.
00:04:22
Speaker
or I didn't really have time to scrub it with dish soap, but I did spray the sanitizer on it, that should be good enough. Right. I think it's important to mention that you can not sanitize a surface that has not been cleaned yet, and that's why we go through all of these steps.
00:04:45
Speaker
If we are establishing a clean break, say in between different kinds or types of varieties of produce, that's going to affect
00:04:57
Speaker
our traceability records.
Clean Breaks in Traceability
00:04:58
Speaker
And so if we have a traceability system on farm where we're keeping track of the amount of produce sold from a certain place at a certain time by a certain person or harvest crew, all of those things that we keep in our traceability records, establishing a clean break sort of divides a lot.
00:05:18
Speaker
And so we can think of a lot number as signifying a very distinct portion of our crop. And if once we establish a clean break in the wash pack setting, then we are moving on to a new lot. And so basically the smaller your lots or the more frequently you're changing lot codes or lot numbers, the smaller the recall will be if something very bad happens to your produce.
00:05:48
Speaker
Right. So if somebody gets sick off of romaine that came from that specific farm during that specific day, you can single out when it was processed and recall all of the romaine from that specific time period.
00:06:09
Speaker
before that clean break. So you aren't going to have to recall all the romaine on your farm, just that specific portion of romaine on that day. Yeah. And to even kind of broaden that out a little bit more, I've had small diversified growers ask me, can I just designate
00:06:32
Speaker
an entire harvest day as one lot. And my answer is, well, yes, technically you can. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. But if something bad were to happen and you have to make a recall, you have to recall everything that was harvested on that day from your tomatoes to your lettuce, to your cucumbers, to your potatoes versus just the one singular crop that may have caused an issue.
00:07:00
Speaker
Right, and that clean break is going to prevent anything that caused that contamination in the first place to be swept away and sanitized. So the next produce that you're processing after that clean break isn't going to be touching any of the same microorganisms that can potentially get people sick. That's a great point, Patrick. Yeah, it's preventing even more cross-contamination. So it's like a double win. That's right.
00:07:30
Speaker
However, it is extra work. And so there is a little bit of a balancing act, right? Between, well, how often am I implementing clean breaks versus how much risk am I willing to assume per the size of my lots in my lot codes?
When are Clean Breaks Necessary?
00:07:49
Speaker
So, okay, so if I'm a farmer who has never heard of a clean break before, I'm just hearing about it right now, what would you tell me as my local produce safety technician, when am I supposed to do a clean break? So I guess I would start by suggesting in between different commodities. So if you're switching from zucchinis to cucumbers, you might want one, especially if you're using wash water. What if I am a hydroponic
00:08:18
Speaker
grower that grows four different varieties of leafy greens. Even though they're all leafy greens, should I still do a clean break? I would definitely start thinking about doing a clean break in between each variety. So that way you know if there is going to be a recall, you know exactly which ones to recall. So you're not having to pull back all the varieties that are on the shelves.
00:08:47
Speaker
I guess on the flip side, is there a time when it's not worth it?
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I would consider not doing a clean break if it's like a smaller, diverse farm where they're not really packing that many commodities during a day. I mean, if you have a small farm on, say, an acre or two, and you're only packing, say, a couple rows of vegetables in the day, it's not going to be really worth stopping and cleaning and sanitizing everything.
00:09:22
Speaker
especially if you're not using water, if you're dry packing, or if you're not using a lot of different tools. Yeah, I guess I can see that. I think another reason or another time it might not be super needed is if you're going from a covered to a non-covered. So say we're, you know, we're rinsing off our tomatoes and then we're going to... Like sweet corn.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, sweet corn or like, I don't know, pumpkins to like, just brush the dirt or like rinse the dirt off of them or something. I would say probably doesn't matter them because we know that those pumpkins are most definitely going to be cooked before they're eaten. Right. That's a great example of Landon.
00:10:10
Speaker
Oh, I guess another thought that came to mind was clean breaks in the shared use equipment situation.
Sharing Equipment: Importance of Clean Breaks
00:10:20
Speaker
So like a diversified farm that is growing lots of different kinds of veggies, but also has a flock of laying hens and they happen to wash their eggs in the same sink where they wash their produce.
00:10:35
Speaker
That would be an instance where you would definitely need that clean break. You don't want any salmonella that could potentially be coming off of those eggs and onto your produce. Yep. But if you're starting off with a clean and sanitized sink, uh, you know, go ahead and wash your lettuce and then, and then move on to your eggs without a clean break. That seems fine, but never do it the other way around. Right. Exactly.
00:11:02
Speaker
Oh, and then another one that we see is, so instead of having a designated wash pack facility, the, the growers home kitchen serves as the wash pack on harvest days. Right. That would definitely be a instance where you would want to clean break, um, both before and after really. Yeah. Just to protect not only the consumers of.
00:11:33
Speaker
your produce, but also yourself in your home kitchen. So how does all this fit into record keeping?
Recording Clean Breaks
00:11:38
Speaker
What are the records that we're trying to keep about the clean breaks? Well, we know that the produce safety rule requires us to keep records of cleaning and sanitizing. And so anytime we're doing this clean break, we mark it down on a little record sheet, keep it on a clipboard on the wall in the wash pack and just sign your initials and date every time it's done.
00:12:03
Speaker
Right, it can be as easy as that, just a time and date and initial, that's all that needs to be recorded for that cleaning record. Yep, and then I guess to me as well, that cleaning record would count as part of my choiceability system.
00:12:22
Speaker
So that would be one of the things, one of the pieces of information that I would wanna keep in my traceability system, along with any sort of inputs those crops received, the date of harvest, who harvested, how much was harvested, things like that. But that record would be a part of my traceability system.
00:12:48
Speaker
Right. And you definitely, if you're using that for traceability, you want to have any lab codes based on where in the field those the impact came from as well. Yes. Good catch there. Definitely. Whether that be, you know, which field, which row, which bed, which greenhouse, which hydroponic tower, whatever, whatever the system is, whatever it looks like on your farm.
00:13:17
Speaker
Right, and that's all on the discretion of the farm as well. It's just how you choose to record your traceability program.
Advantages of Clean Breaks
00:13:28
Speaker
My biggest takeaway is there's basically only benefits to clean breaks. It reduces your lot sizes, it reduces the pathogens present in your work environment, and it helps keep everyone healthy and safe.
00:13:43
Speaker
Right. And if something were to happen and there is a recall, it can lead to less product being taken off market.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yep, less money loss. That's a big one. 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.