Environmental Monitoring

Environmental Monitoring

An Environmental Monitoring Program is a program for monitoring your production environment to identify the existence of harmful microorganisms. There are many benefits to such a program. For example, information gained from this program provides insight into the effectiveness of your cleaning and sanitation program, and the hygienic practices of your personnel – it identifies unknown or unforeseen microbial risks – and it provides information on where favorable conditions exist for the growth of microorganisms. In short, it helps prevent spoiled product and causing harm to consumers.

Designing and Implementing an Environmental Monitoring Program

The Environmental Monitoring Program that you develop will depend on your product, your processes, and your facility. No two environmental monitoring programs should look the same. For example, different pathogens will present greater risks in different types of food. Also, different facilities, production processes, and equipment present different opportunities for cross-contamination requiring their own approach for monitoring. Thus, a tailored program is necessary to properly assess the specific sanitary conditions of your facility. This program is often developed with the assistance of an external subject-matter expert.

As with most programs of this nature, it all begins with a risk assessment. This assessment may be performed with the help of your external expert. After performing a risk assessment and evaluating your unique circumstances, you are then in a position to develop your environmental monitoring program.

Your program will typically involve the following elements:

• An environmental monitoring team,
• A zoning concept and sampling plan,
• The use of indicator microorganisms,
• A set of sampling tools,
• Instructions for the handling, labeling and shipping of samples,
• The establishment of a baseline, and 
• The identification of trends and corrective actions.

Environmental Monitoring Team

The environmental monitoring team should consist of individuals who are familiar with the operation and who can help identify potential areas of risk in the facility. This team should be adequately trained so that they fully understand what is involved in the environmental monitoring program. Once this team is put together, the next logical step is to conduct a walkthrough of the facility and review processes for potential risk factors and conduct the risk assessment. 

Zoning Concept and Sampling

The environmental monitoring team will often create a diagram of their facility and divide each area within that facility into zones. A common practice is to divide different areas of the facility into four zones based on risk. Zones may be base on areas, surfaces, or some other criteria. For example:  

Zone one might be comprised of all product-contact surfaces and utensils. This is a high-risk zone — however, it has its limitations for sampling, as it is regularly cleaned and in constant contact with food. So it may be best to pick a part of a product-contact surface that is not always cleanable or easily seen, like the under-side of the conveyor belt. What we are trying to detect is how the surrounding environment might introduce pathogens to the product. This zone might account for about 10-20% of all the sampling points. 

Zone two might be comprised of areas that are close to product-contact surfaces. This is a high-risk zone – and it is ideal for sampling as it is near the product and might provide insight into how pathogens could get to the product from the environment. The focal point in this zone, for example, might be on equipment areas that might capture food particles but that are not easily seen or cleaned and sanitized. This zone might account for about 40-50% of all the sampling points. 

Zone three might be comprised of surfaces that are not close to product-contact surfaces, but which might highlight any shortcoming in the design of the facility or failures in the hygienic practices of employees. This can include walls, floor drains, air handling units, doorknobs, portable equipment, or other high-touch areas like carts. This zone might account for about 30-40% of all the sampling points. 

Zone four might be comprised of areas found outside of the production area. This could include offices, locker rooms, maintenance rooms, break rooms, and so forth. If this zone is not clean, then it can pass pathogens to the processing area through foot traffic and transference of materials. This zone might account for less than 10% of all the sampling points. 

Once the zones are divided based on risk, and a sampling plan is created for each zone, then the sampling can begin. Sampling should occur at the time and place of highest risk. For instance, sampling immediately after intense cleaning and sanitation would most likely result in negative tests, with very little insight into risks for contamination. However, if you wait a few days after cleaning, and then perform the sample, you will get a more accurate picture of risk for that area.

Indicator Microorganisms

Indicator organisms are microorganisms whose presence indicates the probable presence of pathogens. Pathogens are disease-causing microorganisms, but they are harder to detect sometimes than indicator organisms because they are smaller in number. Because indicator organisms grow under the same conditions as their pathogenic counterparts, we can assume that if the indicator organism is thriving, so would its pathogenic counterpart. Also, indicator organisms are often less costly to test for than pathogens, due to their not being pathogenic, and therefore not requiring containment facilities or more expensive growth media. 

Sampling Tools, Labeling, and Shipping

There are many tools that can be used to collect samples. These tools will differ from facility to facility and within the facility zones. These tools must be handled and used per specific instructions, and properly labelled and shipped to a lab for analysis. Some examples of these tools could include:

• Swabs
• Sponges
• Air Sampling
• Food Residues/Dust/Scrapings
• RODAC Plates
• Agar (a’-gha’r) Plates
• Rinse
• Water/Liquid Samples
• ATP Bioluminescence Assay Kits

No matter the tool, you should always wear sterile gloves when collecting samples to prevent cross-contamination. The sampling team should be well-trained in sampling procedures and understand the importance of collecting an accurate specimen. 

Once samples are collected, they are then labeled and shipped as per the sampling procedure. Labels usually contain the date, location, device, size of sample, list of testing request, date submitted to lab and any other identifying information to show where the sample came from and how it was collected.  

Baseline, Trends, and Corrective Actions

It’s always wise to collect a baseline sample, and then continue sampling for six to twelve months to get an accurate baseline. When establishing a baseline, it is important to consider the impact of seasonality, supplier sources, and other variables. 

Sample results should be recorded in a way that current results can be compared to previous results and new trends can be identified. Any increase in indicator microorganisms or pathogens is a signal that there is a deviation in the sanitary conditions. This deviation should be addressed immediately by corrective action. Initiate a root cause investigation. Make appropriate changes, aka take appropriate corrective action, to remedy the problem. Verify the  effectiveness of corrective actions, and monitor the results.

Corrective actions might include: increasing cleaning and sanitation frequencies, conducting repairs (for example, fixing a drain, pipe, or window), changing employee behavior or traffic patterns, or making production or facility design changes. 

The corrective action should bring the test results closer to, or below, the baseline. All of these actions must be tracked for easy reference and report generation.