AMPCOR202 Apply hygiene and sanitation practices

What are hygiene and sanitation practices?

Hygiene and sanitation practices are the things we do to keep ourselves, the plant and the meat we process clean. This includes:

  • hand washing
  • clean uniforms
  • following work instructions
  • cleaning the plant during and after production.

Hygiene and sanitation is all about producing safe food. All food processors including meat workers have a responsibility to produce food which is safe to eat. Consumers expect to be able to eat meat products without becoming ill or eat products containing a disease.

Food safety is achieved through the hygiene and sanitation procedures that we follow to ensure our food remains wholesome and as free from contamination as we can make it.

Minimum standards of hygiene and sanitation are law and laid down in the AS 4696:2007 Australian Standard for the hygienic production and transportation of meat and meat products for human consumption.

Contamination

What is contamination?

Contamination is anything on or in a meat product that should not be there. These are usually things which affect the food safety of the product.

There are three main types of contamination:

  • physical –g. jewellery, rail dust, hair
  • chemical – g. agricultural chemicals used on farms, cleaning chemicals not properly rinsed off equipment that get onto the meat.
  • microbiological – g. any bacteria or bug that gets on the meat from us or the processing plant.