Case Study: Decontamination of Tented Equipment or Area

Food production facilities are facing greater scrutiny from both the public and the government to provide safe foods. Advances in environmental monitoring and microbial sampling have brought to light the shortcomings of the food industry’s sanitation methods. While there are many reasons for recurring contamination by a persistent pathogen, insufficient cleaning and decontamination is the most common. ClorDiSys Decontamination Services can be utilized for a variety of applications within the food industry from tented pieces of equipment up to entire facilities. Tenting an area is an application that we’re seeing more of lately, especially in facilities that have more of an open design and floor plan.

One example of this application is when our service team decontaminated a confectionery facility’s roaster. The roaster had caught fire and was extinguished by the fire department.  Worried the water used to put out the fire contained organisms which could contaminate their production line, this company wanted to clean the equipment before production started again.  Some of the equipment’s interior was not easily accessible for the in-house sanitation team, so once the majority of cocoa powder was removed, the company opted to decontaminate with chlorine dioxide gas. That equipment was tented and fumigated, as the rest of the room was not deemed a concern. The setup and decontamination of the roughly 8,000 ft3 space took place in 1 day and successfully provided a 6-log sporicidal reduction of all surfaces within the equipment.

ClorDiSys’ Decontamination Services can be arranged for contamination response or preventive control needs. Visit our team at booth #609 at the IAFP Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City July 8-11th to learn more!