Editor's note — This is a special, Web-only story from Staff Editor Lisa Lupo's special report on food plant hygiene. Check out the latest issue of QA here.
If you walked by your scrub room and heard your next shift of employees all singing “A, B, C, D, E, F, G …”, then starting over again when they reached the end, you may think that it’s time to have your ventilation system checked to ensure your employees aren’t breathing something funny coming through the system. But if Jan Eudy, corporate quality assurance manager for Cintas were around, she would just smile knowingly, realizing that the employees simply were taking her advice and using the song to set the proper timeframe for a complete hand washing.
Your hands touch everything, Eudy said. They get sweaty and moist. They have a natural occurrence of skin cell shedding. “They have the ability to grow and sustain microorganisms for a long period of time,” she said. But proper handwashing techniques can purge these contaminating microorganisms and help keep your food safe.
Sing a song. Proper handwashing should take about 15 seconds, Eudy said, which is the same amount of time it takes to sing through the “ABC’s” twice, or, if you prefer, “Happy Birthday.” For proper washing, rinsing and drying:
Washing — It is not just the soap, but also rubbing the soap under warm water, into the hands, around the fingers, under the nails and up the wrists, that gets hands clean. Water must be warm. If employees are permitted to keep wedding rings on, they must make certain to wash thoroughly under and around the jewelery.
Rinsing — Rinsing the hands with warm water is essential to rid the hands of soap as well as debris that was rubbed off during the washing process.
Drying — “The act of drying the hands with a paper towel is actually another step in wiping away microorganisms,” Eudy said. The abrasion of the towel against the skin helps remove remaining soap and debris that was scoured.
While air dryers can provide certain benefits, people generally don’t take the time to use the technology correctly. They generally do not agitate and rub their hands together as directed, and often get impatient with the drying and wipe their hands instead on their pants — recontaminating them and invalidating the washing process.
“When air dryers came out, the advantage was over the reusable towel system. Now research has found that paper towel dispensing is best,” Eudy said.
When to wash: “The general rule is to wash your hands whenever your activities leave the processing function,” said Dan McElroy, market development manager for GoJo Food Processing, Akron, Ohio. At a minimum:
- when an employee starts work at the beginning of the shift and after each break
- before and after eating, smoking or using the restroom
- after blowing the nose, or touching the face or mouth
Automated systems provide another option for plants concerned with employee compliance and wishing to standardize their program. “Traditional manual handwashing leaves the employee responsible to do it long enough, correctly and with the correct amount of soap,” said Michele Colbert, director of sales for Meritech. Such systems can range from sensor faucets, which keep employees from touching potentially contaminated surfaces, but still require correct washing, to fully automated systems where users insert hands into the washing device, which dispenses the correct amount of soap and washes every part of the hands for the correct amount of time at the correct pressure. “Every single person that uses it receives the same standard handwashing,” Colbert said.
Compliance challenges. One of the greatest challenges of proper employee handwashing is that some employees will avoid it because of skin problems that can result from frequent washing. The hands don’t have a lot of natural oil and can dry out easily, and frequent washing can even lead to industrial dermatitis for some, McElroy said. “The big thing is people not washing and sanitizing their hands because their hands are hurting,” he said, explaining that hands can end up getting so dry they crack, so that it literally hurts those employees to comply with handwashing standards.
Additionally, he said, “plants are populated now by more and more women who have a different concern for their hands, and compliance is an issue.”
The answer, McElroy said, is the strategic use of lotions for skin care when employees are not in, or going into, the food area. Applying lotions during breaks (then washing before return to the food process) and after work, and using overnight creams can all help moisturize hands and prevent problems.
Although no lotions are approved for direct hand-to-food contact, plants should consider providing lotions for use after the post-work handwashing.
“There’s a decision to be made,” McElroy said. “These are the things I can get to give people and get them to wash their hands.”
Soap choice can also help or hinder skin conditions. “You need to make sure you have the right soap,” Colbert said. Soaps do not need to have fragrance or much alcohol, as both serve to dry out the skin. A complete rinsing of the soap off the hands also is critical for both skin care and safety.
Soap use. In addition to the skin concerns of soap, general soap use and selection can cause a number of challenges for plants.
Equipment Specifications: Colbert said she has noticed USDA increasing its inspection of handwashing equipment. Primary inspection points are if the equipment is being well maintained, but also if it being used as recommended by the manufacturer — which includes the type of soap. “There was a huge trend for plants to buy the equipment then use the cheapest chemical they could find,” Colbert said. The problem with this is that it invalidates manufacturer statements and guarantee of hand cleanliness.
So, she said, when a plant is choosing its handwashing equipment, it needs to know and understand the soap specifications of each model and consider this before purchase. For example, Meritech’s equipment provides for removal of 99 percent of the bacteria on the user’s hands. But if plant personnel put a non-recommended soap into the machine, the company cannot guarantee the efficacy, she said.
Dispenser Maintenance: If you wash your hands at a certain station and the soap dispenser continually malfunctions, it won’t take long until you don’t bother anymore. “People learn very quickly,” McElroy said. If they repeatedly push the dispenser and it doesn’t give soap, “after 15 pumps, nothing’s going to come out, they quit trying.”
Bulk Soap: While bulk soaps can provide cost savings for plants, care needs to taken in their use. Soap can actually be a medium for bacterial growth, McElroy said, particularly if it gets diluted beyond specifications. In addition, if the dispenser is not cleaned between filling, it can build a film which can neutralize new soap being poured in; this can be of particular concern if a new type of soap is added to a container that has a film or a small amount of different soap remaining in the bottom. McElroy said he’s been in plants where the dispensers did not get refilled fast enough, so a supervisor passing by simply adds water, thinking, “Some soap is better than no soap,” he said. “It’s a balance of risk. What’s the risk of something being in there that’s going to be a challenge?” Which, McElroy said, also brings up the subject of biosecurity. “Bulk creates a second risk. It’s something else that someone could place something into.”
No-Water Sanitizers: Whether wipes or gels, the newer antimicrobial sanitizers that do not require the use of water can have a place in plants, but should be considered as temporary solutions to be used only when or where necessary, particularly for those peripheral to the processing. For example, McElroy noted wipes as providing a very quick way for delivery drivers to sanitize their hands. “It fills in the gap for a very quick and easy method for hand hygiene and general hygiene.”
Colbert agrees with the “as-needed” use of such sanitizers. “They are fine when there is no water source — no place to wash,” she said. The gels can provide a high instant bacterial kill, she said, but most people don’t realize the amount of sanitizer or rubbing time needed to achieve this. In addition, the sanitizers should not be used exclusively, she said, as the emollients of the sanitizers can build up on hands over time. Employees who smoke also should be advised to thoroughly rub in sanitizer and wash hands before lighting a cigarette, as the sanitizer is highly flammable.
Hand in glove. Gloves can be a controversial topic for processors. While they are required by many plants, others believe that they should be used only if needed for employee protection, such as those working with products that are harsh on, or dangerous to, open skin, such as frozen products, potatoes or jalapenos.
Whichever stance your plant takes, however, wearing gloves never should be an alternative to handwashing but a supplemental protection. “Using gloves as a sanitation barrier gives them a false sense of sanitation or security,” Colbert said. This is because:
- the gloves can have holes or pinpricks enabling the entry and exit of bacteria
- bacteria thrive in the areas between gloves and skin, and if there is a hole in the glove, the food being handled gets exposed to this bacteria
- often, employees who always wear gloves often do not wash their hands first, so they are contaminating the gloves even as they put them on
But if gloves are worn as a supplement to handwashing, and proper care is taken to change the gloves as specified, they can provide an additional layer of protection where this is needed. “As you’re putting on your gloves, the surface of your hand is touching the surface of the glove,” Eudy said. When worn, they should be pulled up over the employee’s sleeves and if a hole or tear occurs or is suspected for any reason, the gloves should be changed immediately.
The plants that seem to have the greatest control are those that have handwashing stations at the employee entrance, “so they immediately wash their hands and clean their shoes, then go into change areas,” Eudy said.
Lisa Lupo is staff editor of QA magazine.