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Storing Tools to Reduce Cross Contamination
15 Plays1 year ago
Considering how you store and organize tools is essential for food safety on the farm. In this episode, Produce Safety Technicians Micah Hutchison and Morgan Anderson discuss best practices for tool storage in order to reduce cross contamination risks.
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 Agri-Food Safety
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. Hi, my
Meet the Technicians: Micah and Morgan
00:00:14
Speaker
name is Micah Hutchison. I'm the produce safety technician at the Genesee Conservation District, and I work with produce growers in Southeast Michigan on the implementation of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi, I'm Morgan Anderson. I'm the Produce Safety Technician, housed in Ottawa Conservation District, so the west side of the state. I recently started this role about three months ago, so I'm relatively new and I'm still learning a lot every day.
Preventing Cross-Contamination in Produce Safety
00:00:41
Speaker
But one thing I've noticed as I've been going on some farm visits with some of the other techs and on my Meep Technician in the Ottawa Conservation District is just looking at how people store their tools
00:00:52
Speaker
But coming from a food safety perspective, Michael, could you maybe explain why it's important how people consider where they're putting their tools and the training about that?
00:01:02
Speaker
I think it's really important for growers to consider where they store their tools and how they organize them, because when it comes to produce safety, those tools, if stored incorrectly or if used for, say, tasks that deal with poop, be it cleaning the bathrooms or removing poop for the field, those tools can introduce cross-contamination to produce and food contact surfaces.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's kind of brings up example that I recently saw on a farm was that someone was storing like a, it was like a broomstick kind of, and they were keeping it on the ground like leaning against their their dog take for the apples. And something that Phil Tocco from MSU Extension suggested was maybe just putting a hook nearby, and then a string around that broomstick so they can hang it instead of
00:01:56
Speaker
having it on the ground to help prevent that cross-contamination. Have you seen any similar examples like that, where it's just like a matter of providing some simple infrastructure to make sure that tools are off the ground?
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, I have. I've definitely seen hooks. I've seen separate storage areas, like say closets. I've seen racks where tools were stored, especially close to tasks. I've seen plastic cubby carriers used for tools for storage.
00:02:27
Speaker
Also like the plastic containers with the lids that you know I personally use to like say store blankets or summer clothes. Can you kind of talk more about why shouldn't you store tools on the ground?
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, I would say my first reaction to that would be that there's a lot of gross stuff on the ground. Boots are going everywhere and then they're walking everywhere around the packing line or just anywhere in any facility. And if something, if someone puts a tool on the ground and then uses that to touch some produce, any gross stuff, any germs and whatnot on the ground can be contaminated onto that produce now.
00:03:08
Speaker
And I feel like I would personally lick the ground. So I wouldn't want them touching any tools, touching the ground and then the produce that I'm about to eat. That's
Organizing Tools to Minimize Risk
00:03:19
Speaker
a good point. There are a lot of microorganisms on the ground in soil or just from daily activities that can make people sick. Yeah. Um, I guess I'm wondering like, uh, what is like a
00:03:33
Speaker
the golden standard that maybe out of the examples you just listed, what's one of your favorites? Or maybe like, if you see maybe a place that kind of has their stuff everywhere on the ground, what's kind of your go to suggestion? Of course, every farm is different. So it kind of depends on that context. But is it like a golden type of example, if that makes sense?
00:03:55
Speaker
It does. And to be completely honest, I am kind of like type triple A plus when it comes to organizing. My closet is literally color coordinated. Oh my gosh, why did you do that? So for me, the kind of golden standard is when I walk onto a farm and I see tools that are like hanging
00:04:18
Speaker
really easy access. It could be hanging from a hook. It could be hanging, like you said, from a string. It could be hanging from a pegboard. And those tools are kind of organized by task, and they're located where the task is.
00:04:33
Speaker
your bathroom tools and everything you need to clean, say, bathrooms, porta potties, hand washing stations, they would be in those areas. So it would be really, really hard for someone to say, come in and take the broom for the bathroom to then clean the floor of the pack house. That's my gold standard for organization. What's yours? I would say something that I saw on another firm that
00:05:02
Speaker
I think is very helpful because it's a visual aspect is color coding. They have red tape on stuff that belonged to like the livestock portion of their farm because it was like an education type farm. So they had like goats and stuff for schools that toured and they would tell the kids, okay, red tools stay here. Green tools are for the produce for the field. So I thought that was kind of helpful.
00:05:27
Speaker
I think that I need to quote Phil Tocco from MSU Extension here. The easiest reason for color coordinating tools or like the best reason is so no one uses say the toilet brush on a food contact surface.
00:05:43
Speaker
It's a really great visual identifier for farm workers where like red tools, that red danger color is, we only use that to say clean bathrooms or pick up poop we've seen in the field or through daily operations. And it gives that quick, easy visual reminder of like, this tool is for this task. Morgan, why do you think it's beneficial to color coordinate tools? Kind of that.
00:06:12
Speaker
reasoning as well is that it's a visual thing. So even if someone did misplace something, you won't have to rely on talking to that person of like, oh, where did you grab this from? You can see maybe the color on the handle and you're like, oh, this is where it belongs in the field or this belongs in this storage area. But that also comes down to worker training as well, is that making sure workers are aware of that color coding system and where things are and what goes where, but
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, I would say the visual piece of it, especially for me, like working at different farms and whatnot, sometimes when you walk into the tool shed, everything is chaos in the middle of like planting season. And we're like, where's this been for this? And especially if labels are rubbing off and stuff, it's nice to have that additional visual aid.
Keeping Tools On-Farm for Safety
00:06:59
Speaker
Since you brought up workers, can you talk about why workers shouldn't bring tools or equipment home with them?
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, I would say my one reason that I feel like some employers have yelled at me about was because it's expensive. If people, if people keep taking home harvest knives with them, they have to keep buying more harvest knives and then they just keep disappearing. Um, and that was something when I worked on a farm at school was, okay guys, where are the knives at? We would just forget about them or learn our pockets or something. Um, but in addition to that, when you do take it home,
00:07:35
Speaker
There's a lot of trace steps of that tool, like from work to home, home back to work. And there could be a lot of contamination points along that route, especially because the way you treat, you know, maybe your kitchen knife is different than you would treat the harvest knife when you're harvesting produce to sell to the public. That would be my kind of first answer, but also Michael, I'm curious what, from your many years of experience, what your answer to that would be?
00:08:03
Speaker
If the tools are being taken home, I can't assure that they've been cleaned and sanitized before they were used. I don't know if like our harvest knives, for example, being brought into say a bathroom in the home and left there.
00:08:17
Speaker
until work the next morning. I think it's just kind of like the best way for a farm to ensure that those tools are kept safe. They do stay on the farm, like you mentioned, and that they are able to kind of control some of their exposure to possible microbial risks. For
Infrastructure and Food Safety Culture
00:08:37
Speaker
sure. What are some ways you think, even for people on site, on farm, what are some some tips for maybe making sure that people aren't bringing tools when they're not supposed to be?
00:08:48
Speaker
I think it's a lot is employee training, like you said, with color coordinating and color coding tools.
00:08:54
Speaker
Giving workers training to understand the risk associated with bringing tools and gloves into the bathrooms or home with them is a great first step. I think making it easy, like having those easy places where your workers store them. If it's a locker area, if it's like some designated box so that it's just part of the routine when you're done for the day or when you
00:09:18
Speaker
stop work to go on a break or eat a meal. You just are trained to put all of your equipment back. I think that having hooks outside of bathrooms, outside of porta-potties, hand-washing stations is another great way kind of to support the training so workers don't bring tools, gloves, any kind of aprons or food safety equipment with them in bathrooms. Yeah, I would kind of go off of what you were saying of like
00:09:45
Speaker
You have to have the training, but you also have to have the infrastructure to support what you're telling them to do, like the hand washing stations and whatnot. So that's kind of on the farmer side to make sure that their workers got everything they need to implement the training that they were given. And also on top of that, I think just maybe having some signage of like, hey, don't bring any tools with you in the bathroom, like stop here, check your pockets. What do you got that maybe you're not supposed to have in here? Because I feel like that's something that I
00:10:14
Speaker
found useful working on farms is way before you harvest, did you wash your hands? Like having constant signage is helpful.
00:10:22
Speaker
your mentioning of infrastructure brings up how food safety and produce safety culture are really like a team effort because yes, employees need to do stuff, but then farm owners and farm managers need to make sure that yeah, the training is there. The hooks are there. The places to store things are there. That infrastructure kind of supports
00:10:45
Speaker
the employee action. I also really like how you brought up signage. I think that, um, that is such a great addition to any kind of training program that a farm has are those like great signage reminders. You're right. When I see a sign, I remember to wash my hands for 20 seconds. Yeah, it's definitely a two-way street. Like it, it's two to tango. You need both sides to help the other and making sure they're both implementing food safety.
00:11:14
Speaker
For sure. I'm working,
Reducing Risks with Labeling and Feedback
00:11:16
Speaker
what are some ways to reduce cross-contamination risks with say tools that are dirty and clean? Man, I feel like some of it we kind of talked about like the storage areas. Maybe there's a dirty bin for dirty knives and a clean bin and they're clearly labeled and
00:11:32
Speaker
maybe one bin is red and one bin is green. So people can clearly see what one's dirty, what one's clean. Cause sometimes I look at a clean knife and I'm like, this looks a little dirty, but has it been clean? So, um, I guess having that infrastructure set up, but also, um, I, there was one firm that I did a site visit on. They just wrote right on a knife. If there was like, this one's to be used for the drip line because we run certain things throughout irrigation water. So.
00:12:02
Speaker
just write on the knife retired and we only use retired knives for the irrigation. So also like just maybe writing on the tools themselves but that also comes as well with what we talked about earlier the balance between infrastructure and worker training and making sure both lines of communication are staying open around that especially as farm practices change or maybe they find out that
00:12:25
Speaker
We have this bin of dirty knives labeled, but people aren't utilizing it the way they should. So I guess it's just a constant feedback cycle of monitoring, asking for feedback about what's working, and implementing any changes as necessary. I think that would be an important part of that, reducing contamination.
00:12:45
Speaker
Mike, I'm excited to, I feel like you've seen so much. I'm only like three months in and I've seen a little bit with this stuff as far as like certain tools, but I'm excited to hear everything you gotta say as time goes on about little storage and stuff. Cause like you said, I'm also kind of a type A organization girl with a tool shed. And if I walk in and it's chaos, I'm like, whoa, I get overwhelmed if it's not even something I have to worry about, but
00:13:14
Speaker
That is
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:13:15
Speaker
why I am so organized because otherwise my ADHD brain would be like, oh, that's shiny. Oh, that's shiny.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah. Let me organize the whole tool shed right now. I'm supposed to be grabbing one, one tool because it's easy. Yeah. Links to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at CANR.msu.edu 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.