Ice cubes! How safe are they?

When seeing an iceberg we see the tip of it out of the sea. If we had the chance to see into the depths of the sea below the iceberg we would sea how bigger the iceberg is. Let's do something similar...we all enjoy our cool drinks using ice cubes. We all know the ice machines. However have we ever seen the interior of such a machine?

What we see in the picture above is the interior part of an ice machine producing ice cubes in a restaurant. This part is the water tank and yes the water is coming in contact with this surface before becoming ice cubes. The brown area is actually a biofilm containing bacteria / viruses / molds / foreign materials (dust, soils etc).

Μicro analysis of the ice cubes of this specific machine showed nothing at all. The result could easily support (in a HACCP /ISO 22000 system), that the final product (ice cubes) is safe for human consumption. However, what is missed here is the fact that the biofilm is detached from surfaces randomly! Moreover the sample for analysis is about 200 – 300 gr when a medium (production-wise) ice machine produces 20 tns of ice cubes per year. Doing one and only analysis per year we are sure we have checked 0.001% of the total production.

Biofilm is detached from surfaces randomly!

So as we said in the beginning the situation we described is like watching an iceberg. We see only the tip of it out of the sea, but we know there is much more hidden in the depths of the waters. In the ice machines we see the ice cube and we are unaware of the sanitary condition of the interior…

We wonder if this situation is included in the risk analysis of certified companies (handling ice machines) according to ISO 22000. What are your thoughts?