One of the most important decisions you can make is determining the layout of your building. Layout includes placement of rooms and equipment, product flow, and people traffic patterns.
A poorly-designed building affects your productivity and creates congested operations that can lead to unsanitary conditions.
Flow of Operations
Product flow – how and where a product flows within a plant – can have an enormous influence on sanitation and safety.
Raw meat and poultry products should be considered as potentially contaminated and handled accordingly.
Product should flow progressively from highest to lowest potential exposure to contamination, with intervening processes designed to remove or reduce the contaminants whenever possible.
The movement of product from raw areas to final cooked product areas should reduce the risks of contamination along the way.
The flow of air and people should move progressively from the cleanest areas to the least clean areas.
People Traffic Flow
If the flow of people through product production areas isn’t properly designed, contamination is a serious risk.
For example, personnel working in the live animal areas shouldn’t pass through cooked product areas to access bathrooms.
Welfare rooms (restrooms, dressing/locker rooms, and break rooms) should be designed and located to minimize contamination.
Separating Raw, Ready-to-Eat, and Inedible Product
Exposed cooked product areas should be physically separated from other areas.
A ventilation system should be used to direct air flow away from exposed cooked product areas.
Environmental control equipment such as fans and evaporator condensation pans shouldn’t be positioned above the product.
Cooked product should be covered in rigid containers to protect it from contamination while in storage.
Separate coolers and/or freezers should be available for exposed cooked product.
Inedible and condemned product shouldn’t come into contact with edible product.
Coolers and Freezers
Coolers and freezers, including doors, should be constructed of materials that are easy to clean, durable, rigid, impervious to moisture, non-toxic, and non-corrosive.
Coolers and freezers must be equipped with racks, pallets, or other means to ensure product is not stored on the floor.
Dry Storage
Dry storage materials: Store dry storage materials in a room dedicated solely for that purpose.
Racks: Racks shouldn’t touch the walls. This makes cleaning easier.
Ingredients and packaging: All meat or poultry ingredients and/or packaging materials should be stored in sealed, properly labeled containers on racks or pallets.
Allergens: Ingredients that contain allergens (for example, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybean) must be properly identified and stored separately from a cross-contamination or food-safety hazard.