Cleaning validation

Whether it is Cleaning in Place (CIP) systems, Cleaning out of Place (COP) systems or Open Plant Cleaning (OPC), whatever systems or areas of your factory you need to clean, it is paramount that they are cleaned effectively if you are to produce safe and wholesome foods. This is where ‘cleaning validation’ and the service we offer in relation to this are crucial to confirm whether the cleaning protocols you are using are fit for purpose for achieving an effective clean.

What cleaning validation involves

Any cleaning validation programme for the food industry must adhere to the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Principles. This plan must identify any hazards that must be avoided, removed or reduced to help keep your food safe from hazards that are either physical, chemical (allergens) or biological.

To be successful any HACCP study requires the key steps of validation, verification and ongoing monitoring to be taken. And your cleaning validation programme must cover the entire process, ranging from your initial choice of cleaning equipment, chemicals, methods and parameters (including time, temperatures and cleaning agent concentrations) right through to testing and ongoing monitoring and reviews.

Why cleaning validation is crucial

From the health risks to consumers to the threat of a large penalty fine, potential downtime, lost productivity and damage to your brand reputation; the costs of non-compliance and a cross-contamination outbreak can be colossal.

How our bespoke cleaning validation service can help you

No matter what cleaning protocols you currently have in place, our consultative experts can advise you about whether they are fit for purpose according to HACCP Principles. We can work with you to verify your cleaning validation process, providing consultancy, testing, ongoing monitoring and reviews, to ensure you are doing everything you can to mitigate cross contamination risks, ensure quality assurance, and maximise compliance and consumer safety.

Our experts can support you through the key steps of your HACCP compliant cleaning validation programme including:

Validation

Compliance with HACCP, requires you to obtain evidence that all the elements of your HACCP plan including your controls and critical limits are capable of being effective to produce a safe product.

We can support you in this area including the initial design of your validation protocol and with assessing the existing methodologies you have put in place for this.

Verification

To verify your processes at this stage of your cleaning validation programme, you need to obtain evidence that there is and has been conformance with your HACCP plan, and that the HACCP system you have implemented is and has been resulting in a safe product.

We can support you with verifying the hypothesis you will have written during the validation stage. This concerns the cleaning protocols and measurements you deemed necessary to achieve the level of clean you require to remove contaminants effectively, ensure compliance with HACCP and produce a safe product.

We can also verify whether your cleaning validation hypothesis is correct by reviewing and testing the cleaning programme and protocols contained in your HACCP plan, based on the following steps:

• Testing and measurement:
  • Depending on the results you set out to achieve – we can confirm through sampling and testing of your surfaces following cleaning, and analysis of those results, whether your cleaning process and protocols are effective and valid.
  • This would require 3 consecutive verifications, which would all need to produce the same level of required results to be confirmed as valid.
• Review of cleaning procedures:
  • To ensure you are correctly following all cleaning protocols, we would also review your records to ensure compliance.
• Revalidation:
  • Should any changes occur in your cleaning processes, which could be anything from the addition of new equipment, cleaning agents, process changes and more – we would work with you on revalidation to ensure the effectiveness and compliance of any updated processes.

Monitoring

Cleaning is a prerequisite programme (PRP), whereby food production sites set the required cleanliness standard they need to adhere to, which is typically validated through Adenosine Tri Phosphate swabs, Micro swab and allergen/protein swab testing results.

At this stage we could assist you with the design of the monitoring steps you needed to take.

This would require you to collect, record and document data from your ongoing monitoring to identify any trends or deviations from your established cleaning process.

At this point we could also support you should you require any additional testing or revalidation work.

Why choose Campden BRI?

No matter what food production lines you have in place, or cleaning equipment, chemicals and processes you are working with, our fully bespoke service will ensure you develop a cleaning regime that is both fit for purpose and compliant with HACCP.

• Our experts are fully up-to-date with the latest developments in the area, and besides having a wealth of food and drink experience and expertise, can offer consultancy in environmental monitoring, internal factory design (to ensure it complies with BRCGS), cleaning validation and other factory hygiene-related issues.
• We offer cutting edge, UK-based facilities including laboratories, food process halls, consumer test centres and dedicated training venues.
• We have produced and published industry best practice guidance in this area including Guideline G55/2 Cleaning and disinfection of food factories: a practical guide and Guideline G59 Validation of cleaning to remove food allergens.
• We hold UKAS Accreditation for the main CEN disinfectant efficacy test methods which are applicable to the food industry:
  • BS EN 13697:2023 - Quantitative non-porous surface test for the evaluation of bactericidal and yeasticidal and/or fungicidal activity of chemical disinfectants used in food, industrial, domestic and institutional areas without mechanical action
  • BS EN 1276:2019 - Quantitative suspension test for the evaluation of bactericidal activity of chemical disinfectants and antiseptics used in food, industrial, domestic and institutional areas
  • BS EN 1650:2019 - Quantitative suspension test for the evaluation of fungicidal or yeasticidal activity of chemical disinfectants and antiseptics used in food, industrial, domestic and institutional areas
  • In addition, we can also offer a whole range of other disinfectant tests which are not accredited (e.g. suspension tests for sporicidal activity EN 13704:2018, whole room disinfection tests EN 17272:2020, virucidal tests (various))

Key services

Cleaning validation

Whatever areas of your factory you need to clean, it is paramount that they are cleaned effectively if you are to produce safe and wholesome foods.

COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)

Environmental testing and prevention to help the food industry control SARS-CoV-2.

Factory design and layout

Floors, drains, walls, ceiling and factory engineering expertise.

Equipment design

Independent centre of expertise for hygienic design of equipment.

Cleaning and disinfection

When to clean, how to clean and what chemicals to use.

Disinfectant testing

Ensuring that factories are cleaned and disinfected effectively in a timely manner.

Personnel hygiene

Design and specification of personnel hygiene.

Factory audits and sampling

Help in understanding where risks of product contamination are likely to occur.