Stainless Steel application in Food Industry (GMP requirement)

There are several thousand types of stainless steel in the market.  Which type is suitable for the application of food processors?  If you are about to set up food processing plant, and aiming to apply Food Safety program such as HACCP, GMP or even MeSTI, you should decide which type of stainless steel tools that suits your business so that you can save money or for easy maintenance in the long run....

Stainless steel, they can all be divided into three broad categories - Austenitic Stainless Steels, Ferritic Stainless Steels and Martensitic Stainless Steels.  Austenitic Stainless Steels are the most frequently used types of stainless steels in Food Industries. Austenitic stainless steels tend to have a high chromium content compared to other steel alloys, giving them a higher resistance to corrosion. Another common characteristic of austenitic stainless steel alloys is that they tend to be non-magnetic—though they may become magnetic after cold working. the metal composition in Stainless Steel are Ferrous, Chromium (Tie to Oxygen for anti-corrosion), Nickel (Strength of stainless steel), Carbon (able to bent), Molybdenum (resist sulfuric acid, chlorides, bromides, iodines and fatty acids at high temperature).  

Austenitic Stainless Steels is further categorized to 2 types, Grade 304 and 316. Grade 304 stainless steel is noteworthy for its high tensile strength—roughly 621 MPa (90 ksi). Like most stainless steels, grade 304 has a high maximum operating temperature (about 870˚C). This combination of high tensile strength, temperature resistance, and corrosion resistance makes grade 304 stainless steel ideal for a wide variety of applications. 

On the other hand, Grade 316 stainless has a high tensile strength of 579 MPa (84 ksi) and a maximum use temperature of around 800˚C (1,472˚F). While having a lower tensile strength and temperature tolerance than grade 304 stainless steel, grade 316 stainless contains Molybdenum and has a better resistance to sulfuric acids, chlorides (like salt), bromides, iodines and fatty acids than 304 alloy does. This makes it a preferred choice for any application involving exposure to Meat production, salt containing products and high acid containing products.  Of course, the price is higher compare to grade 304.

With the above said information, you may choose the best stainless steel type for your food processing. It also helps when you are selecting machines for your food processing plant. 

Credit: Sir Mohd Khairul Azli, Marlin Steel Wire Products LLC, Louie Brennan Food Machinery Limited.

Recommended 5 tips for preparing food for kids to bring to school

Parents love to see their children learn happily at school.  Some parent prepare food at home for their children to consume at school, so that theirs loves one could consume the necessity nutrients everyday.  Do you practicing this? But how do we to ensure that the food is still in good quality and safe while our loves one consuming during their recession period?  Here you go ~

1. Do not prepare food too early / prepare leftover food one day before. Those food will deteriorate faster and have the high risk of food poisoning. 

2. Prepare low rick food such as sandwich, biscult and fruits.  These kind of food is less moisure, so they will last longer compare to fry rice, fry noodles and so on. 

3. Educate our children to wash fruits before consume. 

4.Educate our children to wash hands according to 7 steps before consuming. 

5.Educate our children to obviously see, smell and taste the food before consuming. Avoid eating food that are sour or have wierd taste.

Credit: Food Safety and Quality Division, Melaka State Health Department

How to store eggs correctly?

Eggs is rich in proteins and everybody needs them.  However, handling eggs incorrectly will incur contamination.  Let's learn together. Here you go - 

We should select and buy only clean and uncrack eggs and store in the refrigerator.  DO NOT WASH the eggs until we want to cook it.  Washing too early will causing the protective layer removed, resulting the eggs easily damaged. 

  

There are 2 kind of trays that you may use to store eggs :

1. Original egg tray - this kind of tray with eggs are not advisable to put in the refrigerator because of its material is not proven hygiene.  Due to the open egg storage, the egg might have dirts on the egg surface (which we overlooked while purchasing) and it will incurr cross contamination.

2. This plastic enclosed container is equipped with egg curves that ease the storing of eggs in static. It is suitable for eggs storage in the refrigerator.

After storing the egg into the plastic egg container, keep it in the lower part of refrigerator and mae to close tightly.  Wash the eggs when want to cook. 

Credit : Food Safety & Quality Division, Labuan Federal Territory Health Department. 

Is Malaysia cultured shrimp is save for consumption?

In response to the press <THE STAR> in a news entitled "Shrimp Danger - Farmes use illegal antibiotics to treat shrimp" on 4 Jan 2020 that giving negative impact to the Malaysia shrimp farming industries, the Department of Fisheries (DOF) would like deliver feedback to the public on this issue.  

DOF is taking samling against fishes and shrimps samples to survey the antibiotic contains menjalankan persampelan ke atas sampel-sampel udang dan ikan untuk memantau kandungan antibiotik iaitu chloramphenicol (CAP), Nitrofuran (NF) dan Nitroimidazole (NI).

 2,466 samples were taken since 2008 until now and were analysed at accredited DOF Biosecurity laboratory.  It is certified that no prohibited antibiotic substance were detected in all samples.  

Credit: Department of Fisheries (DOF)

5 Keys of Food Safety practices to avoid food poisoning?

1. Keep Hygiene

Bacteria can be widely spread to soil, water, animals and human beings via hands, towel, and kitchen equipment, especially the chopping board. Thus, we must 

1.1 always wash hands, especially before adnd after preparing food, and after visiting toilet. 

1.2 wash equipment that is used to prepare food.

1.3 protecting kitchen from pest contamination.

2. Separate cooked food from raw food. 

2.1 Separate raw food like chicken, meart and seafood from cook food.

2.2 Use separate kitchen equipments like knife and chooping board for preparing raw food. 

2.3 Keep food in container to avoid raw food contacting with cooked food.

3. Cook in a correct way.

3.1 Make sure the food is cooked thoroughly, especially meat, chicken, eggs and seafood.  When boiling fish and meat, make sure the boiled water is clear and not redished. Studies showed that food which is cooked above 70oC is save to be consumed. 

3.2 Reheat the cooked food, if the food is geting cool, before 2 hours keeping.

3.3 Use thermometer to measure temperature.

4. Keep food in save temperature.

4.1 Do not keep food more than 2 hours.  During room temperature, in between 5 - 60oC, bacteria can grow rapidly.

4.2 Keep the cooked and perishable food in refrigerator (below 5oC).

4.3 Keep the temperature of cooked food more than 60oC before serving.

4.4 Do not keep the food too long even in refriegerator. 

4.5 Do not let the frozen food thaw in room temprature.

5. Use clean water an draw food.

5.1 Use clean or treated water.

5.2 Choose fresh and safe raw food. Toxin could be released from bacteria that grow on damaged food. 

5.3 Choose fresh food. Wash fruits and vegetable before cooking / consume.

5.4 Avoid eating packaged food that had expired.         

Credit: Food Safety & Quality Division, Kedah State Health Department

4 information about FORMALIN that Food Handlers should know...

1. Formalin is derived from formaldehyde which is a known cancer-causing agent.  It is a preservative that COULD NOT be use in food.  

2. It is supposely to be used in furniture industry, body perservatives material and so on with the purpose to kill bacteria.  Even worms doesn't consume  body that applied with Formalin.

3. However, formalin is always being mis-used in food such as fish and fish products, Noodles, Tauhu so that the food can be kept longer and no odour.  When you see

3.1 NO flies on fish

3.2 Fish SMELLS like medicine smell, perhaps the fish already being applied formalin. 

4. The long term impact for consuming food (that contaminated with formalin) are causing cancer, damaged on liver and kidney and mental disturbance

Thus, business person should stop using it. Be kind to your consumers... 

Credits: Sir Sazly Tulih

Are you using towel correctly?

Towel could be the most dirty thing in kitchen besides the dish washing span. Would you agree and why?

Yes! It is definitely right if we rub dirty surfaces of hands, tables, plates, kitchen equipments and so on with THE SAME TOWEL. It will be even worst if the towel is not washed in a long time until it sting and blacken. If the dirty and wet kitchen towel is left unwashed, it will incurr the source of bacteria growth and resulting the towel become sting.

It is no use in cleaning hands or any equipment but dried with such dirty towel.  Bacteria in the towel will contaminate the cleaned hands or equipmentand eventually, causing food poisoning, after consuming food (Imagine using the dirty equipment or touching food with contaminated hands). So what to do to avoid it? Practise these...

1. Wash kitchen towels after using them for several days. Do not wait until it is smelly.

2. Hang the kitchen towels after using to let it dry.

3. Separate the towels for rubbing hands, plates & bowls and equipment.

4. It would be nice if using paper tissues or hand drying to dry hands. 

When no towels, DO NOT do this >>>>>>>>

Credit: Food safety & Quality Division, Perak State Health Department.     

How important is weighing scale in Food processing factory?

Weighing scale is used to weigh raw food, in-process products and finish products in a processing plant.  We rely on the measuring device to weight and record the weight in production and packing. Is it only so?  

Every processor has different kind of weighing scale, according to the usage.  For instance, if they need to weigh big and heavy products, bigger weighing scale will be used.  Besides, there are also weighing scale for weighing wet products, dry products, or scales couple with price indication, some scale conneckting with an equipment and also some scales are used to verify the weight that is being weighted.  

Every scale also has different range, some 100kg, some 10kg and there is also 100g for small scale.  If you are weighing sensitive food such as additive, the accuracy of weighing range is very important.  Some would need as accurate as 2 until 4 decimal point.  If you see the scale description wrote as 100g/0.001g.  It means it can be weight until 100g with the accuracy of 3 decimal point. For example, 15.005g.

There are scale that need to be calibrated, usually once a year.  A sticker that written calibration date will be given by the calibration company and should be sticked on the back of the scale as a reminder to calibrate one year later.  

For HACCP certification, if weighing step is a Critical Control Point (CCP), operator should calibrate it everytime before using, usually using standard weight.       

Thus, if you are food processor who need to use weighing scale, especially to weigh sensitive food, do make sure to have these control measures.   

Does reheated Rice save for consumption or not?

Did you know that the reheated rice could cause Food poisoning?

Yes. When rice is stored at room temperature more than 4 hours, it may contain Bacillus cereus (In spore form) that survive after some cooking process to be active again. 

So, it may produce toxin which cause food poisoning, when people consumed them.  So, rice that is

1. kept for more than 4 hours

2. contain slime

3. odour smell

should not be consumed. In fact, all leftover food have the tendency to contain Bacillus cereus. Hence, the leftover food should be placed in container with cover and kept them in freezer in order for the food to be placed longer.  

Credit: Ministry of Health.

Food Defense Certification

Have you heard about Food Defense Certification Scheme? This certification is a recognition given to companies that succeed to execute controls from any threat that is intended to be done until affecting the the products and the organization.

For details, kindly refer to the Safety and Quality division, Ministry of Health.

Credit: Food Safety & Quality Division, Kedah State Health Department

How important is hand washing?

Do you think hand washing is very important, not so important or not important at all? Let the following experiment tell ya..

A primary school teacher, Ms Jaralee Annice Metcal at USA initiate a simple bread experiment for the student.  She prepared 5 breads and do the followings
  
Bread 1: Placed on computer
Bread 2: Untouched
Bread 3:  Touched with unwashed hands
Bread 4: Touched with washed hands (Washing using hand wash and rinse with water)
Bread 5: Touched with hands (that is applied with Sanitizer) 

Having done that, the breads are kept into plastic individually and seal.  Guess what ! After 3-4 weeks, there are changes on the breads, as followed   

Bread 1: Dark grey
Bread 2: Colour unchanged
Bread 3:  Grey-Yellow colour (Growing of mold) 
Bread 4: Colour unchanged
Bread 5: Growing of mold

Although this is a simple project, Ms Jaralee said it could shows the importance of hand washing (as we see at Bread no 4).  Thus,we should make sure we wash our hands 

1. before we prepare food
2. before we have meal
3. after we visited toilet
4. after we throw rubbish
5. whenever we feel that our hands are dirty

as microbes, virus, fungi is everywhere (as long as the place consist of Oxygen) .

  
Credit: Sin Chew Net

10 tips to prepare a Food Hygiene and Safety Feast

Chinese New year is around the corner.  Are you planning to prepare feast for your relatives and friends? It is important to make the feast more hygiene so that your welcomed guests had a very great time having gathering. Well, here are the tips for you -  

1. Avoid having at the contaminated area or places with odour, such as animal cage, faeces tank, drain with stagnant water, waste disposl place etc.

2. Prepare table for putting raw food and put clean cloth or plastic on the tables.

3. Cover cooked food. NEVER USE NEWSPAPER TO COVER.

4. Prepare enclosed dusbin and place to wash hands.

5. Prepare tissues.

6. Make sure the tools like plates, glass, fork, spoons etc are in clean condition. 

7. Prepare places / container to keep used plates, chopsticks, fork, spoon, cups and so on.  

8. Make sure water source is clean.

9. If need to cook outside, build a tent to do cooking.

10. Prepare enclosed waste bin.

Happy Feasting...

Credit: Food Safety & Quality Division, Kedah State Health Department.

Why packaged products need to be labelled?

Do you know that finished products that had been packaged should posses label? Why? Here are the reasons: 

1. To provide information about product content.

2. To provide information about food usage  

3. To ease enforcement from Health department officers 

For Consumers, please pay attention that to

1. buy only packaged and labelled food
2. acknowledge the food ingredient
3. make sure the food storage does not passed the expiry date
4. read in detail and follow the food keeping instructions
5. understand the food proparing method
6. study the food information at label
7. avoid buying food with broken packaged (tinted, rusty or swollen). 

Credit: Food Safety & Quality division, Kedah State Health department

Have you check on this before importing food products?

1. Make sure food products comply Food Act 1983 and its regulations (Food safety, standard and labeling.

2. Make sure the product is not categorized under National Pharmacy Regulatory Agency (NPRA) of Ministry of Health (MOH)

3. Determine if the food product need extra document for import (Health certificate, analysis certificate, licence and so on).

4. Importer and forwarding agent to register with MOH via Malaysia Food Safety Information System (FoSIM).

5. Baby food should comply the baby food marketing ethic that is monitored by MOH.

6. Make sure the food & Ingredient that is produced via moden Biotechnology gets approval from Ministry of Water, Land and Natural Resources (KATS)

7. Some food products needs import permits, extra licence from government agency such as Malaysia Quarantine and Inspection Services (MAQIS) and so on.  Do refer to Custom Orders (Prohibition regarding import) or contact Malaysia Royal Custom dept @ www.custom.gov.my to know about the type of imported food and the agency involved. 

Credit: Food Safety & Quality Division, Kedah State Health Department

Food Licences

Are you doing food business such as selling ice, mineral water, drinking water adnd water vending machine? If yes, do make sure you had applied licences for

ICE -  Ice licence
MINERAL WATER - Nature Mineral Water Licence (AMS)
DRINKING WATER - Packaged Drinking Water Licence (AMB)
WATER VENDING MACHINE - Water Vending Machine Licence (MJA)

For know-how detail, you may visit website of Food Safety & Quality Department, Ministry of Health.

Credit: Food Safety & Quality Division, Kedah State Health Department.

Have you get ready for your BeSS certification?

The followings are the tips for the BeSS certifications.  Let's do some final check: 

1. Make sure all documents are prepared, correct, clear and still valid. 
2. Premise registration, Vaccination card and Food Handlers Training Certificate should be ready in the business premise. 
3. Make sure all Food Safety element are complied, at least above rating of 86%.
4. Refer to calory bank given by Health advice officer and apply to at least the 10 main menu.
5. Obtain softcopy of food nutrition poster, print and display.
  
Credit: Food Safety & Quality division, Sabah State Health Department