John Holah, Principal Corporate Scientist, FS&PH, Kersia Group has composed a paper looking at the changes made by the food industry to hygiene routines during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The paper is now available online and considers the fact that food industry has had to undertake additional hygiene measures, primarily during production periods, to help manage coronavirus.
These have primarily consisted of social distancing, the increased undertaking of hand washing and the use of hand hygiene products (including a potential increase in hand hygiene monitoring), and additional disinfection of environmental human touch points (e.g. door handles, switches, stop/start buttons, HMI screens, hand rails, keyboards, hand soap and towel dispensers).

Hopefully, these practices, designed to reduce the number of viruses on the hands and in the food processing environment (that could be transferred to the hands), have helped in their intended COVID-19 control. It looks at whether these changes, which have enhanced personal hygiene and cleaning and disinfection, are perhaps the biggest single change in such hygiene practices within the food industry for many years and if it’s possible that these changes could also have brought additional benefits in terms of food safety or personal health.

John is encouraging customers or other food manufacturers in the sector to submit anonymous data so that he can provide an industry overview on the subject or indeed work with other interested parties on it.  Please contact John Holah directly john.holah@kersia-group.com