Role of preventative programs like EMP to ensure food safety and quality

Johanna Ramirez, Director of Microbiology & Food Safety, The Coca-Cola Company

For many years, the food and beverage industry has relied on HACCP as the overarching framework to manage food safety. Preventing food safety incidents has been and remains the focus of the industry. Food safety is a must, but it is not enough. Our brands are committed to delighting our consumers every single time, and to achieve this purpose, we must ensure 100 percent quality.

From 1828 Food Safety marketplace incidents reported in 2022, approximately 65 percent were linked to microbial contamination. While there is public information regarding food safety incidents, there is very limited information on quality and spoilage issues.

If we use the lens of consumer satisfaction to evaluate our programs, we can conclude that while a lot of focus has been put on HACCP (for good reasons), other programs have not been elevated to their maximum potential. Our responsibility as food and beverage manufacturers is to go beyond food safety and strengthen all fundamental quality programs.

In the case of high-risk products, environmental monitoring programs (EMP) have been in place for more than 15 years with a focus on pathogenic microorganisms. Although EMP is a mature program in these factories manufacturing high-risk products, we get news on a regular basis of food safety incidents traced back to the environment.

With these insights, we have reflected in our company on how to evolve EMP to make it a fundamental tool to elevate good manufacturing practices. There were some key reflections on the weaknesses of traditional environmental monitoring programs in the industry:

- Focus only on pathogenic microbes, with little attention to hygienic indicators and spoilage microorganisms, or focus on hygienic indicators without attention to pathogenic microorganisms even though they are a target microorganism of the finished product.

- Out-of-specs results only trigger corrective actions, more effective cleaning, and more frequent cleaning.

- Zoning is done based on product proximity without considering the actual risk of having the microbes entering and remaining in the product.

We seized the opportunity to enhance the industry approach to the environmental monitoring program; our company dedicated a global task force to establish the requirements for the program and to support the implementation in the more than 900 factories within our system.

The approach we follow in the environmental monitoring program is the following:

- All the facilities are in the scope of the program regardless of the product risk.

- Target microorganisms selected based on the product and factory risks. Major focus on hygienic indicators and spoilage microorganisms.

- Establishing hygienic zoning to consider the risk of product exposure and whether there are any mitigating factors (e.g., validated kill step).

- Implementing a two-coordinates approach for each sampling point that combines hygienic zoning (low, medium, and high risk) and product proximity.

- Each factory owns and sets its own specifications based on baseline data and reference values established in the requirements document.

- Out-of-specs results trigger both preventive and corrective actions. It is not enough to correct (cleaning and sanitation). Processes need to be reviewed to prevent reoccurrence: improving hygiene practices of personnel and improving building or equipment hygienic design.

- There is no metric for the percentage of samples within spec in this program. We encourage teams to challenge themselves rather than fit results into a spec.

A few months after the entire organization initiated the implementation of the program, we already see benefits and numerous examples of factories that have improved their good manufacturing practices based on the findings of the Environmental monitoring program.

- Ice cream facility: redesign of a secondary component of the ice cream bar machine that collects leftover chocolate to improve hygienic design.

- Juice facility: HVAC

- Packaged water site changes the floor in their manufacturing areas to improve cleanability and drainability.

- Carbonated soft drinks site: Implements changes in master sanitation program and increases cleaning frequency of conveyor belts and drains.

When reviewing foundational quality programs, factory teams should reflect on how each one of them plays a role in satisfying and protecting our consumers.

Every time that a consumer gets our products, it is an opportunity to delight them and keep them coming back.