Minimizing downtime while maintaining excellent plant sanitation and smooth operations are critical in processing fresh produce, such as tomatoes, which have a limited harvest season of approximately 100 days. With hundreds of tons of tomatoes arriving by truck daily, the plant needed every advantage to ensure cleanliness and keep it running like clockwork. As traditional biocides simply retard microbial growth, periodic plant sanitization shutdowns are required since these biocides do not completely kill the bacteria. In attempt to improve the overall efficiency and cleanliness of the plant....

In the frozen food industry, Listeria is a particularly challenging bacteria as it does not go dormant at low temperatures. Bacterial counts also naturally increase throughout processing and packaging, which requires the operator to closely monitor bacterial levels and conduct complete shutdowns for CIP when necessary.