Conduct a Food Hygiene Audit amidst COVID-19

Conduct a Food Hygiene Audit amidst COVID-19

As professionals of the Food and Beverages industries, we all understand the importance of maintaining good hygiene practices in our systems and processes to mitigate the risks. Since the risks are constantly evolving and changing with time, it is critical for us to realign and upgrade our systems and processes to keep risk at bay.

WHO has mentioned COVID-19 as the global health crisis of our time. Though FDA has stated that there have been no reported concerns of COVID-19 transmission via food or food packaging, it is a prudent step to assess our existing hygiene practices followed in our operations effectively.

TÜV SÜD has developed an evaluation protocol relevant to Food and Beverage sector to assess systems and processes in order to protect your business, employee health and ultimately the safety of your customers.

Scope covered under Hygiene Audit

• Applicable manufacturing practices
• Examining current cleaning and sanitizing procedures
• Practicing hand hygiene
• Building structure
• Cleaning regime
• Deliveries
• Documentation, monitoring and records
• Emergency procedures
• Equipment and facilities
• Food display
• Personal hygiene
• Pest control
• Product handling
• Storage areas
• Supervision, instruction and/or training
• Temperature control
• Hygiene and food safety audits to local, international and custom standards
• Process and product audits (according to customer requirements)
• Supplier audits (to minimise the risk from external sources)
• Audits of equipment hygiene (such as using the facilities of the airlines)
• An audit report with detailed information on the status of implemented processes and potential for improvement.

We also conduct:

• Regular food safety and quality audits, microbiological testing of food samples and chemical testing of food contact materials to ensure ongoing compliance during food production.
• Audits of supply chain partners to identify potential weaknesses in supply chain activities and test end food products under real world conditions to assess consumer safety and satisfaction.

The audit is applicable for manufacturers, food processor, caterer, retailer and others relevant to food sector.