In the webinar Hygiene in food plants and its relationship with hygienic designorganized by SOMEICCA, Jesús Díaz Treviño, pharmacobiological chemist at Diken International, emphasizes how, along with hygienic design, cleaning and disinfection processes can become another ally for delivering safe products to end customers.

The evolution of hygiene in the food industry went through different stages until it reached the present where not only the chemical product, the dishes and the cleaning method are involved. The evolution in hygienic and sanitary methods is currently complemented by new and intelligent ways of designing plants and equipment for the food industry.

There is a 360-degree cleaning method, where we always recommend alkaline cleaning plus acid cleaning. Which will allow us a balanced cleaning where grease and organic matter will be removed, and it can also remove mineral salts that are in the dirt that will be removed from equipment or work areas,” says Jesús Díaz.

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Eight steps for cleaning and hygiene in food establishments

1. Prepare the area. This includes manufacturing to make solids collection operational. Do a pre-rinse and take a break between finishing and cleaning.
2. Disassemble the equipment. Disassemble absolutely all the equipment, put all the parts in their proper place and wash them. Care must be taken not to miss any, for which a checklist can be used.
3. Collection of dry matter. Collect all solids from disassembly and those left over from the process. Collect them and send them for confiscation.
4. Initial rinse. In which part will the dirt left after the process be removed.
5. Collection of wet solids. Collect all the solids that came out of the rinse. Never pour solids down the drain. Collect them in plastic bags and send them for collection.
6. Washed. Here, solutions are used for proper washing without excessive use of detergents or chemicals. Proper design of cleaning tools is extremely important.
7. Sanitized. This must be done appropriately and the one that best suits the cleaning needs of the plant must be used. It can be with a water jet, with a nebulizer, with a sprayer, each of them gives efficiency to the process.
8. Discharge. After cleaning, the equipment is released. There are plants that do this organoleptically. And they use instruments such as lamps and sensors to help verify that the cleaning is done optimally.

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