Meat&Poultry - April 2012 - 69

SANITATION SHIFT

safe food in an establishment if everything isn’t clean?” asks Marriott, who has written several textbooks about plant sanitation and cleaning, including Principles of Food Sanitation, now in its fifth edition.

sanitation work is the control it gives the company over the process. “We finish up the shift work at 3:30 p.m. and the plant cleaning and sanitation is done between 3:30 and 11 p.m.,” he says. Various phases of cleaning are carried out separately by different employees. “For example, we don’t mix raw and ready-to-eat with the people who are cleaning up equipment,” he says. Part of the reason the cleaning is done “in-house” is to save money. “Normally, it’s going to cost more to have outside contractors come in than to do it yourself,” he points out. He also notes the equipment and food-contact surfaces are inspected frequently as part of the inhouse service. “We have a three-prong inspection process after cleaning,” he says. “The cleaning is done, the supervisor checks it and then it is inspected. If the inspector wants the equipment torn apart, then that’s done.” Tom Murray president of DCS Sanitation Management, has headed the company for the past 12 years. The Cincinnati-based company has provided sanitation and cleaning services for more than 25 years to companies throughout the US, including major beef, pork and poultry processors. It recruits people locally to work on its crews, which range from four or five people to several hundred. “We go in at night after production ends for the day,” Murray says. “All but one of the plants we work in are USDA-inspected.” That’s what drives the need for contract sanitation services like ours. But we are seeing more inquiries for sanitation services from FDA-inspected plants, with efforts to improve FDA plants.”

Many of his employees are former QA people or government inspectors. USDA plants call on DCS and other sanitation contractors because in addition to USDA inspection, the plants also face third-party audits, as well as requirements from retail stores like Wal-Mart. The advantage for a plant using a contractor, Murray believes, “is sanitation is all we focus on,” he says. “We’re always trying to improve. And it frees the plant workforce to make good products, instead of thinking about how they’re going to clean up afterwards. For employee safety and quality assurance, programs, for pre-op inspection, we offer a higher level of expertise. “We also have a focus on food safety, ons i t e m a n a g e m e nt , a trained workforce, employee safety and audit and review systems,” he
Murray Fouche Marriott

Achieving good plant sanitation
Depending on the company and the volume and type of process and products, many companies rely on third-party companies to perform sanitation procedures. Others utilize in-house sanitation workers. “There are advantages and disadvantages to both,” says Marriott, who worked for a company that operated 12 meat-processing plants before he came to Virginia Tech. One of those plants used an outside contractor, while cleaning and sanitation was done by employees in the others. “When you have an outside contractor do the work, the contractor is responsible for the plant being clean, rather than the plant management,” Marriott says. “Also, the contracting companies are specialists; they should be proficient in getting a plant clean and sanitized. And the contractor is aware they have to do the job right. The major negative point about hiring a contractor is the cost. It’s going to cost more to do it that way than by using your own employees.” Seltzer’s Smokehouse Meats, manufacturers of Lebanon bologna, one of a few unique sausages still made in the United States, with two plants in Palmyra and Lebanon, Pa., has always done its own sanitation and cleaning and continues to do so today. Ron Fouche, director of quality control for the company, says the main reason plant employees do the

adds. “The disadvantage to a plant of using us is they give up a little control,” he says. “But we provide welltrained, on-site managers at each meat plant location, we’re committed to food safety and we understand the work we do plays a major role in keeping our food supply safe and consumers healthy.” Sanitation is certainly a critical issue for Devault Foods Inc., a Southeastern Pennsylvania-based supplier of portion-controlled meat products for foodservice. The company began in 1949 as a one-room butcher shop and

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