Is your Environmental Monitoring Hitting the Right Notes!?

This is the story of two food companies: company A and company B. They both have substantial environmental monitoring (EM) programs in place and spent a lot of time and money to find the nasties in their factory (I’m talking 6 figures per year here!). However, the companies have quite different EM philosophies.

Company A

Company A is seeking to swab as many places as possible. They have the “more is better” approach and want to cover a wide area of the factory. They also subscribe to random swabbing and the environmental technicians take several swabs in an area of the plant (at their discretion) before creating composite samples for testing to reduce costs.

Company B

The environmental monitoring in company B is designed differently. Company B is using a risk-based and targeted approach. They take most of their swabs in the areas that are high risk to the product. They have also defined the actual sample points and carefully pre-selected these points, using microbiological expertise. Furthermore, the environmental technicians are swabbing the points at a set frequency.

Clearly, company B does not cover as much factory ground as company A. Furthermore, the program for company B is very predictable, with little wiggle room for the technician.

Question: Which EM philosophy do you prefer?

And then we find the pathogen!

Company A

As the positive result is from a composite sample, company A can only point to an area of the factory when they start their traceback. They quickly go back to the individual sample sites and swab the individual sites prior to cleaning. Unfortunately, 90% of these traceback swabs comes back clear (actual real life number!). All the factory team can do is clean the positive factory area as good as they can until the “all clear” is given.

Company B

There is no doubt about the positive swab site at company B. The team immediately isolates the area around the affected swabbing point and starts a PSI (Pathogen Scene Investigation). As they have swabbed the same point a week before, the team has a clear starting point for their root cause analysis (what has happened in the last week, what has changed?). The focused approach also improves their chances of finding the pathogen again.

Question: Which company philosophy do you prefer now?

So, whilst both companies conduct a comprehensive environmental monitoring program, the program at company B shows the business value of a risk-based and targeted philosophy. We increase our chances of finding the root cause and can make product decisions from a clear starting point. company B is swabbing their factory with “the end in mind” and can respond to a positive swab result with confidence.

At company A, they do find the pathogens, but their response to the positive detections has become like a continuous traceback. The factory team is disheartened, because they are not finding the root cause(s) and have started going through the "spray, pray & walk away" cycle. For a food business, an EM program for pathogens can create a lot of noise, particularly if it does not provide the factory team with the tools for an immediate pre-determined response.

Nobody likes finding pathogens in the factory environment! However, when we do find them, a risk-based and targeted approach will hit all the right notes.

Let’s make some music! (Says the guy, who has never played an instrument in his life.)

Jack

Disclaimer: This article is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the opinion or policies of my employer(s).