The importance of a well-equipped hygiene lock in the food industry
- Wednesday 19 September 2018
- By: BOONS FIS
- Category: Hygiene equipment
It's impossible to imagine food-related companies today without food safety and hygiene. Alertness to each aspect of production is required. Food-producing companies deploy a whole range of monitoring systems to prevent food from becoming unsafe. When it comes to personal hygiene, investment in a well-equipped hygiene lock is simply a must. Strict personal hygiene is also the new norm in sectors related to the food industry. Examples here include hygiene in cultivation under glass (growers) or the packaging industry. Personal hygiene indeed forms part of the “hygiene plan” that in itself is also a part of the integrated “HACCP system”.
Why integrate a hygiene lock in your production environment?
Employees and visitors can bring “foreign impurities” into production spaces at any time and spread them there. Examples include micro-organisms (bacteria, moulds, viruses, etc.), cleaning products, lubricants, foreign objects such as glass or cigarette ends, etc. Such impurities will get into the production environment without effective cleaning, disinfection and control of the hands and soles.
How should a hygiene process take place?
A 5-step plan is shown below:
1. Soap the hands
Soaping hands is the first step in a good hygiene process. In a fully furnished hygiene lock you can make soaping the hands compulsory or otherwise. You can use a soap dispenser with turnstile to making soaping compulsory and the user then has to wash the hands afterwards. Step 2 is then also guaranteed. For somewhat smaller production spaces with lower numbers of people, in many cases a small soap dispenser (automatic or otherwise) can also be sufficient.
2. Washing the hands
After the hands have been soaped they must be thoroughly washed. During this step it is important to avoid contamination. Hence all washtroughs from BOONS FIS are fitted with operating devices whereby the hands do not touch the taps (knee push-button, sensor at knee height or sensor in the tap). More details about this can be found on the washbasins and washing sinks product pages.
3. Drying the hands
After the hands have been washed they must be thoroughly dried. This is done using paper tissues or with an automatic hand dryer. The automatic hand dryer has a whole lot of advantages such as fewer logistical obligations, extremely fast drying, no overflowing paper bins, etc.
4. Hand disinfection and sole cleaning
Disinfection follows thorough cleaning. A hygiene station is often chosen in which both stages (hand disinfection + sole cleaning and disinfection) are combined as with the best-selling URK hygiene station. The robust and durable turnstile only gives access when the user has correctly followed the cleaning procedure. Here the correct cleaning procedure consists of two stages:
- Hand disinfection with the stainless steel nozzles in the disinfection chambers.
- Cleaning and disinfecting the soles with the rotating horizontal brushes (vertical brushes are an option when boots are worn in your production environment).
5. Determining the exit flow
The exit flow and flows between are also aspects that require the necessary attention. Do employees have to use the same route to go back out of production or is a separate exit flow to be provided for? Depending on the number of persons passing, the budget and routing at the establishment, one may provide a separate exit flow with separate turnstiles or otherwise.
In short, a well-equipped hygiene lock is of great importance to food safety at your company. When you try to develop the hygiene stages as efficiently as possible, you gain certainty of guaranteed personal hygiene in your production environment.
