Hygienically Clean Food Safety: 100-Plus Plants Certified
TRSA’s Hygienically Clean Food Safety certification for laundries serving food manufacturing and processing markets continues to attract more laundries seeking to promote their cleanliness in this market. Facilities most recently qualifying for the designation include Plymate Inc., Shelbyville, IN and Unifirst Corp., Nashville, TN. These additions bring the total to 103.
Joseph Ricci, TRSA President and CEO, applauded them and the 11 recently recertified laundries for their efforts to ensure textile safety. “This certification accomplishment reflects their commitment to best management practices (BMPs) in laundering as verified by on-site inspection and their ability to produce hygienically clean textiles as quantified by ongoing microbial testing. It proves their commitment to infection prevention, and that these laundries take every step possible to prevent human illness,” added Ricci.
The Hygienically Clean Food Safety certification confirms the laundry’s dedication to compliance and processing garments and linens using BMPs as described in its quality assurance documentation, the focal point for inspectors’ evaluation of critical control points (CCPs) that minimize risk. The independent, third-party inspection must confirm essential evidence that:
- Employees are properly trained and protected
- Managers understand legal requirements
- OSHA-compliant
- Physical plant operates effectively
To maintain their certification, laundry plants must pass quarterly testing of outcome-based microbial testing, indicating that their processes are producing hygienically clean garments and other reusable textiles with diminished presence of harmful bacteria. Testing ensures that as laundry conditions change, such as water quality, textile fabric composition and wash chemistry, laundered product quality is consistently maintained. This process eliminates subjectivity by focusing on outcomes and results that verify that textiles cleaned in these facilities meet appropriate hygienically clean standards and BMPs for animal processing, dairies, fruit/vegetable, bakeries, grain and other food and beverage industry segments.
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) practices are examined in the Hygienically Clean Food Safety inspection process, evaluating the plant’s techniques for:
- Conducting hazard analysis
- Determining CCPs, monitoring their control, correcting them if not under control
- Validating and verifying HACCP system effectiveness
- Documenting and record-keeping to show ongoing conformance
On-site inspections also evaluate practices relevant to handling and processing textile products used in food manufacturing/processing establishments for adherence to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) directives. Introduced in 2014, Hygienically Clean Food Safety brought to North America the international cleanliness standards for laundering garments and other textile products for food manufacturing used worldwide by the Certification Association for Professional Textile Services and the European Committee for Standardization.
Newly Certified Plants
- Plymate Inc., Shelbyville, IN
- Unifirst Corp., Nashville, TN
Recertified Plants
- Budget Industrial Uniform, Gardena, CA
- Millers Textile Services, Wapakoneta, OH
- Unifirst , Portland, OR
- Unifirst Corp., Baltimore, MD
- Unifirst Corp., Pompano Beach, FL
- Unifirst Corp., Fort Worth, TX
- Unifirst Corp., Chicago, IL
- Unifirst , Tacoma, WA
- Unifirst Corp., San Diego, CA
- Unifirst Corp., Jacksonville, FL
- Unifirst Corp., Atlanta, GA