Early closing today!

Blendwell Chemicals will be closed from midday today for stocktake. We will not be able to release any goods or accept any deliveries this afternoon. But we will re-open on Monday morning at 07h30!

What are the 8 control measure for HACCP? Part 1

When you have a HACCP system in your establishment that grows, prepares or packages food, you will need control measures in place to avoid contamination of your food.

• Only use approved suppliers. Suppliers who understand your commitment to HACCP will be able to support your efforts to avoid contamination. Their products should be tested from time to time to ensure quality.
• Well-designed premises and equipment. If you have the right equipment and everything is laid out well, your systems will be easier to work. When things are in their place and your space makes sense, everyone can work more comfortably.
• Prevent pest infestations. A good HACCP system will have many preventative measures. Pests are attracted to all food stuffs and making sure you have adequate pest control is vital.
• Correct cleaning and disinfection. Using HACCP compliant cleaning products in a responsible manner is going to help you to avoid contaminations in your food factory.

Blendwell Chemicals manufactures its own range of HACCP compliant cleaning products. For more information please visit www.blendwell.co.za/Food_Industry_Cleaning_Products. Blendwell Chemicals is a manufacturer and wholesaler of cleaning products in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

What are the 4 hazards in a food factory?

In any environment where food is grown, produced, prepared or packaged, the HACCP system should be in place. HACCP is an acronym for the hazard analysis critical control point. This system analyses all contact points and their surroundings to ensure food remains safe.

There are four main types of hazards:

1. Biological and microbiological hazards. These would include all foodborne diseases like E. coli.
2. Physical hazards. These hazards will include things that can cause physical harm to the person eating the food by perhaps cutting their mouth, burning them or breaking their teeth. These things could be glass, nails, even jewellery that accidently falls into the food due to carelessness.
3. Chemical hazards. These hazards will occur when residues of pesticides or cleaning chemicals contaminate the food. Or if the food comes into contact with poisons. This can cause food poisoning and chronic illness.
4. Allergenic hazards. Some people are highly allergic to things like shellfish, peanuts, milk,soy, sesame seeds or gluten. If exposed to these foods they can experience anaphylactic shock. They do not always have to eat one of the foods that they are allergic to but the food could be exposed to the food they are allergic to and becomes contaminated.

You need to know what the hazards are in order to be able to avoid them. HACCP is a fantastic system to use if you handle food. For more information on cleaning products that are HACCP compliant please visit www.blendwell.co.za/Food_Industry_Cleaning_Products. Blendwell Chemicals manufactures cleaning products for the food industry in Midrand, South Africa.

The 7 principles of HACCP - Part two

For your establishment to follow the rules of HACCP, you can use the seven principles to get you started. Ensuring food safety is vital if you handle any type of food. My previous blog discussed the first three principles here are the rest.

• Principle 4: Establish critical control point monitoring requirements -Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure that the process is under control at each critical control point. Its frequency must be listed in the HACCP plan.
• Principle 5: Establish corrective actions - These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation from an established critical limit.
• Principle 6: Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended - Validation ensures that the plants do what they were designed to do. Verification ensures the HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities as review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits and microbial sampling and analysis.
• Principle 7: Establish record keeping procedures - The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing deviations.

Getting your HACCP procedures right is vital when you handle any type of food product. For more information on HACCP cleaning products that are manufactured by Blendwell Chemicals please visit www.blendwell.co.za/Food_Industry_Cleaning_Products. Are you using the HACCP system yet? Let us know.

The 7 principles of HACCP - part one

To successfully run a HACCP system in your establishment you will need to follow the seven principles of HACCP. Here are the first three:

• Principle 1: Conduct a hazard analysis – Determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive measures that can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.
• Principle 2: Identify critical control points - A critical control point (CCP) is a point, step or procedure in a food manufacturing process at which control can be applied and as a result, a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.
• Principle 3: Establish critical limits for each critical control point - Establish critical limits for each critical point. A critical limit is the maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point .

There are a further four principles to adhere to, if you want to get HACCP right. Watch out for our next blog. In the meantime, if you would like to know about the HACCP compliant cleaning chemicals that we manufacture, please visit www.blendwell.co.za/Food_Industry_Cleaning_Products.

New Competition!

Enter our new Twitter competition now. You can find us at @BlendwellChem on Twitter. For a full list of terms and conditions please visit www.blendwell.co.za/New_Products.

Good Luck! 

Free training in May

Every month we have a free training session. This month we are doing training in HACCP. This training will involve cleaning of all types of farms, factories and kitchens where food is grown or prepared. -You can learn about our H-range of cleaning products that is HACCP compliant. Please call Cynthia on 011-805-9940 to book you place. Only a few spaces left for Wednesday 15 May at 10AM.

How to remove stains from a tablecloth

Lots of fun has been had and lots of food has been eaten and now the tablecloths look more like wars have been fought on them. If there were children at the table it’s usually worse. Not necessarily just because of the children but because mom’s red wine was inevitably spilt by one of the children.

When there are stains the best thing is to remove them as quickly as possible. If it’s red wine, you can douse the area with salt to soak up the wine. You can also get the table cloth off the table and rinse it in water – fast. This is my method for everything including my white pants that my two year old drew all over with black permanent marker. Give a light rub when wet to help loosen the fibres to release the stain. Always make sure that if it is a type of food that is spilt that you have removed as much of the solid parts as you can before making it wet.

The next part is a little bit of magic. Take Blendwell Chemicals Oxygen Bleach, just a scoop to 5 litres of water and let it soak. You can give it an extra rub to make sure the cleaning product gets into the stain. Leave it to soak. I often leave my very well stained table cloths soak for a day or two. Take it out and wash as per normal. Your tablecloth should look like new.

This is a cleaning chemical I cannot live without – you really should try it. Even my white pants have no sign of ever being in contact with a permanent marker. For more information on what Blendwell Chemicals manufactures please visit www.blendwell.co.za to see their huge range of cleaning products. Blendwell Chemicals is in Halfway House and is the best local wholesaler of cleaning products.