Contamination of a food manufacturing facility's food products could have a hugely negative impact on that enterprise's reputation and could lead to serious illness in the customers who consume those products. As such, it is critical for those who run businesses of this kind to take steps to minimise the risk of their products being contaminated. Here are two ways that they can do this.

Install stainless steel worktops

The materials from which a food manufacturing facility's worktops are made can have a significant impact on the likelihood of its food products being contaminated. The reason for this is as follows; some materials are more porous than others. A wooden worktop, for example, can contain thousands of tiny crevices, whilst a stainless steel worktop has virtually none.

When raw meat or eggs are prepared on a porous worktop, some of the harmful bacteria (like salmonella or E.coli, for example) on their surfaces may end up seeping into the worktop's crevices. The crevices essentially serve as a safe haven for these pathogens and thus make it difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to either wipe them away with a surfactant-based cleaner or kill them with an antimicrobial cleaner.

When left inside the worktop's 'pores' for more than a few hours, these pathogens may begin to multiply. Then, when food is subsequently prepared on this worktop, it can become contaminated with the pathogens. Anyone who consumes this contaminated food product would almost certainly end up experiencing extreme gastrointestinal distress. As such, it is best for those who own food manufacturing businesses to install stainless steel worktops, which are non-porous and will not, therefore, provide any 'safe havens' in which dangerous bacteria could potentially hide.

Invest in regular pest inspections

Mice and rats are constantly in search of food, and both of these types of rodents have an extremely strong sense of smell. Due to the fact that a food manufacturing facility does, of course, emit very strong food odours, this type of building is very likely to attract the attention of rodents.

If a pack of rats or mice build a nest in or near a facility and begin to explore it in search of food, there is a very high risk of the food products that are made in that facility becoming contaminated by the urine or the droppings that these rodents excrete. These excretions often contain extremely dangerous pathogens which, if consumed via a contaminated piece of food, could make a person extremely ill.

However, owners of food manufacturing facilities can easily prevent this type of contamination from occurring by having their premises inspected by a pest control expert on a regular basis. These inspections will ensure that any infestations are identified and dealt with at the earliest possible stage, long before any contamination occurs.