Doorway foamers, also known as entryway foamers or a doorway sanitizing system are often used in food manufacturing facilities for food safety. Traditionally these doorway sanitizers are used in areas where wheeled traffic is coming in and out of production zones and other areas where preventing pathogens from entering is key. Unfortunately, doorway foamers are sometimes used in production areas as a method to sanitize employee footwear, which has several pitfalls:
Doorway foamers do not provide consistent contact time with employee footwear
The core problem with door foamers as a footwear hygiene method for food safety is that they weren't actually made for human traffic. Therefore, they're not designed in a way to ensure consistent footwear sanitation from employee to employee at a food processing facility.
With a doorway foamer it is easy for employees to circumvent the entryway foam sanitizer by stepping over or going around the foam. Even if they do step in the foam: Is there contact time with the sanitizer with both shoes? Or just one foot in and one foot out as they're walking through? Even if both pieces of footwear do make contact with an adequate amount of the entryway foam sanitizer, how much contact time was there? A second? Was that really enough time to ensure pathogen removal? Probably not.
CleanTech® Footwear Enhancements Guarantee 12 seconds of contact time with Footwear Hygiene Solutions for more than 99% Pathogen Removal
Learn more here!
Environmental conditions can easily disperse entryway sanitizing foam causing inconsistent footwear sanitation and food safety risks
There are a lot of environmental conditions to consider when choosing a doorway foamer or timed entry sanitizer for food safety including temperature, air flow and traffic. Drafts caused by fans or other sources of air flow can easily disperse the foam from its intended area causing a food safety risk for your facility.
Large groups of people can also impact the effectiveness of your door foamer, especially those on a timed schedule. If multiple people walk through the foam, how much is left for the employees in the back? Same with wheeled traffic, if multiple forklifts or other machinery goes through the foam at one time, how much entryway sanitizer is left for the last one driving through?
Doorway foam sanitizer is slippery and can be a safety hazard to food production employees
If you've ever walked through doorway foam sanitizer, you know it's pretty slick. If employees are wearing street shoes or boots that are not non-slip, this can easily pose a safety hazard for them resulting in falls, and hopefully no breaks or sprains.
While it may seem ridiculous how slippery this entryway foam is, this goes back to our original problem with doorway foamers for footwear sanitation -- they're not made for people. Machines can easily drive through the foam with little risk, but these timed entryway foam sanitizers were not made for human traffic, and therefore can put your team members at risk.
How CleanTech® Footwear Enhancements are Better than Door Foamers for Food Safety
CleanTech® Footwear Enhancements are designed to work with the CleanTech® Automated Handwashing Stations to remove more than 99.9% of pathogens from employee hands and footwear in 12 seconds. To help ensure footwear hygiene in any facility, we have two types of CleanTech® Footwear Enhancements available: the Wetted Boot Dip and the Sole Clean Low Moisture:
Learn More About the Sole Clean Low Moisture Enhancement Here!
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Wetted Boot Dip
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Sole Clean Low Moisture
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