Preventing cross-contamination has been one of the most critical challenges in food manufacturing, and food businesses often dread contamination incidents and the effects they can have on people’s lives and business perspectives.
Understanding the nature of cross-contamination and methods to prevent and handle it can significantly alleviate the struggle with the issue and protect both consumers and your own food business.
In this article, we’ll explain cross-contamination, how it happens, how to prevent it, and how to simplify your daily food safety operations.
What Is Cross Contamination?
Cross-contamination means the transfer of harmful bacteria, viruses, microorganisms, or allergens from utensils, foods, or people to other objects and foods. It can cause foodborne illnesses.
Cross-contamination is more likely to happen when handling raw foods like meat, seafood, eggs, etc. Cooked meals and products can also be contaminated if not separated. For that reason, food handlers must be careful to avoid it. Proper training and awareness can easily tackle this issue.
What Are the Types of Сross-Сontamination?
Cross-contamination can take different forms, which influences how the issue is handled. Below are some main pathways of cross-contamination.
1. Food-to-Food
The most apparent type of cross-contamination is food-to-food, which means that pathogens can move from one product to another that touched it. Food can contaminate other ingredients, for example, when it is not separated correctly (raw and processed products), stored, or washed.
2. People-to-Food
People also carry hazards, which is why they can contaminate food with bacteria, viruses, or even physical pathogens. Therefore, sick workers are prohibited from working with food, and food handlers must follow strict sanitation protocols.
3. Equipment-to-Food
If your sanitation procedures are insufficient, leftovers on the equipment, bacteria, or allergens can get into the food it touches—the same with utensils, boards, and surfaces. Imagine cutting salad with the unwashed knife you used to cut raw chicken. Cross contamination is unavoidable.
Who Can Be Affected by Cross-Contamination?
People who consume a contaminated product can suffer from a foodborne illness, allergies, or other adverse effects. But pregnant women, the elderly, children, or people with weaker immune systems are at a much higher risk.
To avoid these risks, food manufacturers must understand how cross-contamination happens. It will help them foresee potential issues.
What Are the Causes of Cross Contamination?
Cross-contamination can occur in different scenarios and at various supply chain stages, but it’s essential to know why the chances of contamination exist.
1. Human Factor
Human factors can cause some human errors that lead to cross-contamination. Examples can include improper personal hygiene – a worker didn’t wash their hands properly or forgot to change the dirty apron. This is how pathogens can enter food.
2. Allergen Processing
One of the most common types of cross-contamination is the introduction of allergens into food. Allergens must be stored separately from other foods, and machinery used to process allergenic and non-allergenic foods must be carefully cleaned.
Food labels must declare all allergenic ingredients in each product and whether the food has come into contact with equipment that has been in contact with allergenic ingredients.
3. Low-Quality Ingredients
Low-quality raw food is a common source of cross-contamination, so you must monitor your suppliers to prevent spoilage. It’s best to have pre-approved suppliers that maintain high food safety standards and have been certified by third-party auditors.
4. Lack of Commitment to Food Safety Practices
If your facility lacks a proper food safety management system, has disorganized recordkeeping procedures, and has workers who are not adequately trained about safe food handling, you risk selling a contaminated product that will eventually be recalled.
The problem often boils down to human-made mistakes and insufficient food safety management. Food manufacturers must be consistent and aware of the risks and ways to maintain a safe food handling environment.
Beware of the Cross Contamination Consequences
Consuming contaminated products can cause foodborne illnesses, from food poisoning to serious health problems requiring hospitalization. Typical symptoms of food poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and dehydration.
Apart from that, eating contaminated food can cause chronic diseases like kidney failure or neurological disorders. Cross-contamination with allergens can also trigger severe allergic reactions among people.
Let’s remember about the fear and anxiety caused by consuming contaminated food. People can suffer from psychological issues badly influencing their quality of life and eating habits.
From the manufacturer’s perspective, putting customers at risk can cost a lot in terms of reputation and finances. A contaminated product will be recalled, causing financial losses. Food businesses can also lose their certifications, get fined, fall under increased scrutiny, receive more attention from regulatory bodies, and be audited more frequently.
Companies will experience downtime, increased costs, and loss of employee morale. Contamination incidents will also adversely impact the company’s reputation.
Cross-contamination affects customers and manufacturers, so prevention is the only way to avoid mistakes. But how can you do that?
What Is the Best Way To Avoid Cross Contamination?
To prevent cross-contamination, you should implement various strategies regarding operational aspects, sanitation, supply chain management, etc. Here are some insights into these strategies.
- Understand food safety hazards. You must understand what dangers can cause cross-contamination risks. These could be biological hazards, physical hazards, or chemical hazards.
- Implement a HACCP Plan into your production. A HACCP plan will help you monitor hazards more efficiently and spot potential contaminants in advance.
- Cleanliness and Sanitation. Incorporate SOPs on hygiene, cleaning, and sanitation to prevent cross-contamination caused by improper personal hygiene, insufficiently cleaned and sanitized equipment, etc.
- Pest control. Pests can quickly appear in food and turn into physical and biological hazards. You must implement a pest control system and dispose of products accordingly, as pests usually occur due to improper waste management.
- Temperature monitoring. The most effective way to kill pathogens is to control storage temperature and process food under the established temperatures. IoT devices like Bluetooth thermometers and other monitoring equipment can accomplish this task.
- Food handling. Train employees to follow food handling procedures strictly. The practices will include separating food, cooking conditions, storage, sanitation and more.
- Supplier monitoring is an indispensable part of cross-contamination prevention. Verify supplier documents, track their performance, and double-check if they follow food safety practices. Suppliers sometimes provide a contaminated product to your facility; you must foresee and prevent that.
- Use digital tools to facilitate food safety and quality management at your facility. Software and IoT devices will automate the processes and help reduce human errors, downtime, and cross-contamination risks.
Please check out our detailed blog article about preventing and avoiding cross-contamination for more information.
Real Cases of Cross-Contamination
Unfortunately, foodborne illness outbreaks happen often, many of which are caused by cross contamination. Sometimes, we need to delve deeper into this topic and see real examples to understand the extent of the problem and how to prevent it.
Caito Foods’ pre-cut melon Salmonella outbreak occurred in 2019. Caito Foods voluntarily recalled fresh-cut watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, and mixed fruit melons because of potential contamination from Salmonella bacteria.
The products were distributed to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Different sources report that the contamination affected around a hundred US people aged from less than a year old to a 98-year-old.
JBS Tolleson, Inc. recalled approximately 12 million pounds of raw beef products because of Salmonella contamination. In 2018, it affected nearly 250 people.
The FDA and CDC (Centers for Disease Control) investigated an outbreak of Salmonella in diced onions sold in the U.S. and Canada. According to the FDA, the outbreak resulted in 80 illnesses, 18 hospitalizations, and one death.
Digital Solutions To Prevent Cross-Contamination
Nowadays, AI, IoT, and other technologies have significantly facilitated food safety management, and preventing food contamination has become a more achievable task. Here’s how a software solution like FoodReady can help you.
FoodReady software will digitize food safety at your facility to prevent cross-contamination and make it more manageable. It enables efficient HACCP management, CPP monitoring, document management, supplier monitoring, and more. You’ll efficiently manage sanitation procedures, SOPs, equipment maintenance, etc.
FoodReady will replace multiple tools and platforms and centralize workflow. We want to provide a complex solution, offering professional advice from our food safety consultants on your FSMS, HACCP plan, recall actions, audit preparation, and more.
Implementing an automated and centralized solution is a game changer for the food and beverage businesses. Contact us to learn more about what we can help you with!
Conclusion
Cross-contamination occurs when harmful pathogens enter food from different sources, such as other food products, people, equipment, etc. It can harm people’s physical and mental health, a company’s reputation, and the business overall. Therefore, preventing cross-contamination is a critical task for a food manufacturer.
Implementing strict hygiene practices, developing and maintaining documentation, and following food safety strategies are tasks you can do to avoid terrible mistakes that can lead to worst-case scenarios.
Cross-contamination can be prevented. For additional insight, please read our article on how to avoid and prevent cross-contamination.
If you feel perplexed and tangled in the ideas and approaches to food safety, a digital solution is what you need. Automation tools can alleviate the hassle and minimize contamination risks. Feel free to contact FoodReady for help!
FAQs
Businesses must establish monitoring procedures, track their suppliers’ performance, ensure proper document verification, etc.
A well-thought-out facility plan can significantly improve food safety and reduce cross-contamination risks. Examples of well-designed facilities include planned zoning for raw and processed foods, properly established pathways for workers, and accessible and adequate sanitizing areas.
Plan the facility layout and product storage. Use different equipment for raw and processed foods; for example – you can implement color-coding to differentiate the tool’s purpose.
There are several ways. For example, food can be put in unsanitized packaging, or non-hermetic packaging can allow pathogens to contaminate food from the environment.
