Monthly Archives: February 2016

How Clean is Clean?

Food manufactures know they must produce a safe, quality food product that their customers will continue to trust. To do this they must be diligent in their quality assurance programs. Are you giving your sanitation group the proper allotted time and training to always perform their duties correctly? If you are involved in food manufacturing you want to answer “YES.”  But in reality, you have to implement programs to ensure the effective cleaning of your processes and equipment prior to each day’s start of production.

To be proactive many food manufacturers use a surface ATP (adenosine triphosphate-the energy molecule stored in all microorganisms) bioluminescence testing method. The ATP that is measured from a sample may be from food residue, bacteria, yeast, mold or some combination of these. Keep in mind the ATP methods only give a broad indication of the presence of organic substances and not specific microorganisms. This is a quick and simple to use system designed to detect ATP on surfaces after cleaning and prior to applying sanitation chemicals. If the ATP level found surpasses your established threshold the equipment must be re-cleaned and tested to confirm the surface is clean. By utilizing ATP testing this allows the sanitization group to improve their work immediately.

Monitoring your facilities hygiene is critical when it comes to HARPC and HACCP compliance. As part of comprehensive food safety program, it can also bring a great deal of peace of mind. If you compare the investment in strengthening your sanitization program verses the total costs associated with an outbreak or product recall (consider possible harm to your customers, litigation costs, wasted product, production downtime, and damage to your brand), the choice becomes pretty clear.

Simply put, ATP testing methods are an important tool in looking beyond the surface when it comes to clean. Keep an eye out for more ATP news right here on the Wide Line blog, including exciting new developments in ATP technology provided by 3M later this year. In the meantime, we’re here to help you with all of your ATP and environmental testing needs! Help is just a click or a call away!

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The Big C(heese)

Nisin-treated biofilm Source: Dr. Yvonne Kapila

Nisin-treated biofilm
Source: Dr. Yvonne Kapila

Is cheese the answer to a longer life? Well, it appears that it just might brie, er, be.  Recent research from the University of Michigan has revealed that nisin, a naturally-occurring food preservative that commonly grows in cheese and other dairy products, kills both cancer cells and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA.

Now, before you start “working on your night cheese” à la Liz Lemon, you should know that this was a small-scale study conducted on mice dosed with large, concentrated amounts of nisin—a “nisin milkshake”, to be exact. If humans were fed the same “milkshake” it would contain nisin amounts 20 times what’s typically found in a serving of cheese. Still, the results are promising—70-80% of the rodents’ cancerous head and neck tumor cells died after nine weeks, considerably extending the animals’ survival.

Although less is understood about Nisin’s lethal relationship with cancer, past research has determined that its role as a superbug assassin is two-fold. First, it quickly binds to bacteria, allowing it to work before the bacteria have an opportunity to develop potentially antibiotic-resistant properties. Next, nisin also kills bacterial “biofilms”, which are colonies of bacteria that join together to thwart antibiotics. As researcher Dr. Yvonne Kapila highlighted in her study findings, no one has yet discovered a bacterium in humans or animals that is resistant to nisin, making it stand the test of time as a treatment.  “Mother Nature has done a lot of the research for us; it’s been tested for thousands of years,” said Kapila.

More research is needed to determine exactly if and how nisin can best be used in human medical applications to fight disease, but the research done so far on the biomedical use of nisin is promising. Regardless, this is the kind of gouda news that makes just about everyone feel a whole lot cheddar.

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Back to Cow-llege

cheesecertificateSix years ago, I had the honor of going back to school. Before you start envisioning a Rodney Dangerfield ‘80’s movie, I can assure you that it wasn’t that kind of school. Yes, it took place at the renowned party academic institution of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but this was cheese school. The Wisconsin Cheese Tech Short Course, to be exact. I had just joined Nelson-Jameson, Inc. after working in the retail and merchandising industry for a decade, and I needed to learn about the core business of my new employer. So, like many of my colleagues before me, I was sent to Madison for a week of immersive classes provided by the UW’s Center for Dairy Research, one of the world’s premier dairy research institutions with which Nelson-Jameson has always held a close relationship.

Taught over the course of a week, the Cheese Tech Short Course covers cheese making production principles and technology and includes an optional cheese making lab that offers hands-on experience in cheese production. When the CDR describes the course as “intensive”, they aren’t kidding. I used every bit of my high school and college knowledge of chemistry, biology and algebra to comprehend the over two dozen lectures that included topics such as “Secondary Microflora”, “Pasteurization” and “Starter Cultures”. Even seemingly easy-sounding subjects (“Shredding and Slicing”, I’m looking at you), proved to be much more complicated than one would think. I took comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only novice in our class whose previous experience with cheese mostly revolved around consumption. My classmates ranged from Marketing Directors for Fortune 500 food companies to novice Cheesemakers to QA Managers at local dairies to R&D Executives from foreign countries. To someone new to the food processing world, the diversity of our group clearly demonstrated the importance of the cheese and dairy category in the global food industry and solidified my choice to join a company that contributed so greatly to what was clearly a dynamic and important part of the food production world.

It was a fascinating week that I’ve never forgotten, and the information that I learned served me well in my early days in sales. Now, as a marketer, it’s provided an intellectual foundation for my creative process in communication and promotions. And, as I grow with Nelson-Jameson, the knowledge taken from the Wisconsin Cheese Tech Short Course will surely supplement any role that I may undertake. Turns out that not only does the cheese stand alone, it also stands out.

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Targeting Pest Control

Pest Control Products Sale Flyer-2-1Pest control certainly doesn’t top the list of most people’s passions in life. In the food industry though, there is no avoiding the consistent threat to human health and to your operation’s success that pests pose on a relentless, daily basis. This reality motivates us at Nelson-Jameson to be passionate about keeping our customers supplied with the right tools for the right pest control jobs.

We recently mailed out our newest Pest Control Products Sale Flyer featuring an array of products that can help keep you on top of your pest control regiment. You’ll find sales pricing on an array of products including Shat-R-Shield bulbs and Insect-O-Cutor units. Keep an eye out for the flyer in your mailbox or take a look at a PDF version right here. To browse our extended selection of pest control products click here.

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