Use of cleaning chemicals
In October 2015 we published an update about the use of cleaning chemicals containing quaternary ammonium compounds (or QUATS) such as BAC or DDAC. See below link for the original news story.
These compounds are difficult to remove from surfaces, and often a water rinse is not enough to fully remove all residues. This can result in chemical residues contaminating your organic products.
The SA standards state that you must not use substances on contact surfaces which might contaminate organic products and it is your responsibility to put measures in place to ensure there are no residues left behind if you chose to use cleaning chemicals containing QUATS. If you cannot demonstrate suitable rinses are in place a non-compliance will be raised at inspection.
To avoid possible contamination you may wish to switch to a different cleaning product that does not contain BAC or DDAC to ensure your products are not at risk of residues. Talk to your cleaning chemical supplier to see what alternatives they can offer that can be effectively rinsed with the facilities you have available.
Alternatively, if you wish to continue using BAC or DDAC, we recommend you take action to validate whether your rinsing procedures are sufficient to remove residues. You could do this by purchasing QAC test strips to test contact surfaces in your dairy, or send a sample of your product to a laboratory for testing.
If our inspectors identify a risk of contamination with BAC or DDAC at inspection they will take samples of the product for analyses.