Meat not safe due to lack of knowledge of hygienic design

Food safety issues are often related to poor hygienic design

There have been many food scandals reported recently, particularly in the fish and meat processing industry. These risks can be prevented through better hygienic design of machines and plants. Which means that the machines and plants are designed in a way that they are easily cleaned, minimising the risk of contamination. Knowledge of hygienic design is however often lacking. Therefore at TOPbv we will start organising workshops on hygienic design later this year.

The safety of our food is increasingly under attack. First it was salmon, now it’s meat. Consumer confidence is decreasing as a result. The food sector gets the blames as well as the authorities that are responsible for overseeing the sector. But the fact is that not everything can be inspected. Good quality assurance (QA) management, but also proper hygienic design are crucial. A good example is the case of the salmonella contamination in smoked salmon in 2012 where thousands of people got sick and some even died. The Dutch Safety Board clearly showed that the cause was due to parts of the production line that were difficult to cleanse. With proper knowledge and application of hygienic design this could have been avoided.

Combining knowledge of microbiology, food technology and engineering is necessary for hygienic design. We have this knowledge and are going to organise workshops to ensure that hygienic design is deployed more often in the food industry. As this is not limited to the Netherlands, we have partnered with technology service provider Campden BRI from England to roll this out internationally.

The first workshop will take place in the autumn of 2014. The definitive date is not known yet, but those interested from the food processing industry can already leave their details on