1. www.gmaonline.org Environmental Monitoring for Verification AFDO June 2014 Warren E. Stone, MBA Sr. Director of Science Policy Grocery Manufacturers Association

2. www.gmaonline.org Acting on Results  In order to act upon EMP results the program needs to be an effective one.  Results are truly a result of environmental conditions and not from program shortcomings.

3. www.gmaonline.org Should we have an environmental monitoring program (EMP)?  The decision to incorporate an Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) into a company's food safety plan is done following a product and process risk evaluation  The EMP may not be needed in all manufacturing situations o Such a determination should be the outcome of a thorough, comprehensive and robust hazard analysis and risk evaluation

4. www.gmaonline.org However...  An EMP is NOT a control program in itself  Verification program to ensure all other food safety programs are effective o Sanitary facility design o Sanitary equipment design o Hygienic zoning o Traffic patterns o Separation of RTE and non-RTE areas o Good manufacturing practices o SSOPs o Employee hygiene training

5. www.gmaonline.org Seek and Destroy  An effective EMP program is a “seek and destroy” mission  Objective is to find potential niches of pathogenic growth and implement corrective action plans and mitigation steps to eliminate them  The objective is not to generate clean, consistently negative results o If all current sampling sites yield negative results, go look somewhere else  Positive results are viewed as an opportunity to correct and improve factory sanitary conditions

6. www.gmaonline.org QUESTIONS