Webinar: Five Simple Strategies for Improving Hand Hygiene Compliance for Food Safety
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Discover key strategies utilized by industry leaders to maintain impeccable compliance.
- Practical insights: Gain practical and actionable strategies to enhance hand hygiene compliance within your food safety protocols
- Industry best practices: Discover how industry-leading food safety experts improve hand hygiene compliance using tried-and-true techniques
- Risk mitigation: Understand the importance of proper hand hygiene in mitigating the risks of foodborne illnesses and maintaining the highest standards of food safety
- Compliance enhancement: Learn how to strengthen hand hygiene practices and ensure regulatory compliance through effective training methods and implementation tips
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Transcription Below:
Strategy 1: Enhancing Hand Hygiene Awareness with Training and Education
Matthew Gonzales: My name is Matt Gonzales, and I'll be your host for the Meritech side of this for this session. Hand hygiene compliance is an ongoing challenge faced by food processing facilities, and it's an issue that demands our immediate attention. Today, we will address some of the key challenges organizations in the industry encounter, including employee turnover, training across multiple locations, daily onboarding, time constraints for training, and the difficulty of validating compliance in a high turnover workforce.
In the food processing industry, employee turnover is a constant challenge. It's vital to ensure that every employee, regardless of their tenure, understands and practices proper hand hygiene. We will explore effective strategies to maintain consistent hand hygiene practices despite the ever changing workforce.
For food processing facilities with multiple locations, maintaining consistent hand hygiene training standards can be daunting. We will discuss innovative approaches and techniques to ensure that all employees across different sites receive the same comprehensive training, fostering a culture of hygiene throughout your organization.
Daily onboarding of new employees presents a unique challenge in the food processing industry. How can we effectively and efficiently convey the importance of hand hygiene to new team members without compromising on training quality? We will explore streamlined onboarding methods to maximize the impact within the limited time available.
So let's dive right in.
So first we have Alison Smith, who's the senior director of strategic accounts here at Meritech. Alison, why don't you introduce yourself?
Alison Smith: Yeah, so thank you so much. I'm Alison Smith. As you said, I'm Senior Director of Strategic Accounts here at Meritech. So I have ownership of our corporate accounts key partnerships, and also our emerging markets, including international.
Matthew Gonzales: Perfect. You're covering our first strategy here, which is enhancing high hand hygiene awareness through training and education. I know you have a lot of experience with this, a lot of our customers have come to us for that advanced training in hygiene education. So I'm just going to get right into it.
What are the key factors that contribute to low hand hygiene compliance rates among individuals?
Alison Smith: Yeah, it's interesting when we talk about compliance, one of the biggest contributors to compliance rates really is human behavior, just the variability from person to person, from site to site.
So that's one of the most significant contributing factors, but also just lack of knowledge around proper hand hygiene techniques, what needs to be done, and then also adherence. to what an organization's protocols and expectations are about handwashing.
Some facilities may even be limited in what they have available. Companies need to have the right hand hygiene practices put forth for employees and reinforce that so that there isn't that ability to forget, avoid, or be negligent when it comes to what those expectations are.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. No, I think that forgetfulness is huge. Sometimes we get complacent sometimes, in our own lives, I feel like with some of these things we've been doing this our whole life washing our hands ideally. We learn the correct way, but I think that, Just making sure that folks are reminded of these things is huge.
Alison Smith: Yeah, exactly. And even to add to that, on top of forgetfulness, it can even just be distraction, right? Hurriedness, that sense of urgency that they want to get out on the floor so quickly or get to that next task that's in their minds. That, the oversight can happen when there's just such an intense process that has to be followed to get the right hand hygiene.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. How could training and education programs effectively enhance hand hygiene awareness among individuals?
Alison Smith: Yeah, training and education is so important because it really drives to the forefront how critical hand hygiene and overall employee hygiene is, especially at the core of a food safety program.
So you have employees going into high risk areas, handling food. Hands are one of the main vectors for the spread of pathogens. And so it's really important that employees understand fundamentally how important this is to mitigating risk for food safe practices. By demonstrating the right techniques, by having the right signage, training reinforcement of training, and just tips on how to incorporate that into their day really makes it more of a routine and regular practice.
Explore the Food Safety Toolbox for more hygiene tips and best practices
Matthew Gonzales: What role does leadership and organizational support play in promoting hand hygiene awareness and compliance?
Alison Smith: It's big, right? If you don't have buy in from the top, then it's really hard for employees to feel motivated, encouraged and really promoted. So we always talk about that sense of fostering a culture that prioritizes hand hygiene compliance, and that is the core of it.
It's crucial that they're bought in. And also that they are leading by example, right? So if employees don't see the food safety leadership, quality leadership, or leadership of the organization following those practices, then, there would be a tendency for them to question why they have to do it.
Representing that behavior promoting it, encouraging it, communicating that is very important.
Matthew Gonzales: Are there any emerging trends or research findings in the field of hand hygiene training and education that you find particularly promising or exciting?
Alison Smith: Yeah technology. Absolutely. Technology just continues to improve in this area and even for monitoring. One of the technologies I would mention, that's part of the CleanTech® Systems is the ability to monitor compliance that actually built into the technology. Is this ability to see over the course of a shift or a day or a month or historical trends? What compliance is? So how many people, should you have washing their hands?
And is that reflected in the compliance data that you're actually able to pull? That's really amazing advancement, given that. With manual handwashing practices, oftentimes that's kind of behavioral observation that's requiring someone standing there to monitor, are people doing what we want them to do, expect them to do
Also if someone's standing there, there's going to be a higher likelihood that they're going to be maybe more compliant than even left on their own with no one overseeing. So I would just say, technology and just the application of, data analytics to be able to measure and monitor compliance and just how the overall hand hygiene program is working effectively.
Matthew Gonzales: Nice. Yeah, I think that's huge. Data analytics is, the future in a lot of industries, but I think that, there's some exciting things that can definitely happen with monitoring these things and seeing how you can grow as an organization and where you need to fix, certain areas of the organization in regards to compliance. What are the key metrics or indicators that can be used to measure the impact and effectiveness of hand hygiene training programs?
Alison Smith: Definitely compliance rates. So just again, having a way to monitor and measure. Are people washing their hands? We have an expectation at the start of the shift or after breaks and just really measuring watching either, observationally or through technology how that rates of compliance is going. Then also I would say, feedback, talking to team members. Is it easy? Is it accessible? Is there anything about the practice that's in place that deters them? Do they have enough water from being compliant? Do they have enough warm water? Do they have enough solution that needs to be used to effectively wash their hands or paper towels?
Are all of those elements there that make it easy? Or are there elements that are going to impact behavior and drive potential noncompliance. So I would say just real communication, just measuring and monitoring that everything that is needed. To be there to be effective is, and I'm just using that overall to track the rate of effectiveness of their overall program.
Matthew Gonzales: Yeah, absolutely. And making things easy. That's huge. You talk about, our automated systems, but even just making trainings easier, making everything easier. For employees and making it less complicated. Cause the more complicated it is, I feel like the higher chance compliance is going to maybe shift a little.
Alison Smith: Exactly. Yeah. And I remember talking to a partner actually that we did a a customer success story with verbatim saying that the easier you make it, the more compliant they will be. And that just stuck with me because I just think it, it is such a core message at all of this that we're talking about with hand hygiene and training and compliance.
Discover Meritech Customer Success Stories here
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. Thanks for covering this first strategy. I think this is, this is huge. I think this is number one which obviously it is number one about, how you're going to actually enhance that awareness to your employees. Definitely an important topic. And I want to thank you again, Alison, for covering. Then we'll be on to the next one here.
Alison Smith: Sounds great. Thank you so much. Thanks.
Strategy 2: Creating Hygiene SOPs that are Measurable and Trackable
Matthew Gonzales: So now we have Kelly Chapel, who's the Director of North American Sales for the West here at Meritech. Kelly, why don't you introduce yourself?
Kelly Chapel: Thanks, Matt. Yeah, I I've been working at Meritech for the past three years or so and oversee our western region and happy to be here today.
Matthew Gonzales: Yeah. Great to have you. Thanks for joining. So I guess the strategy that we're covering next is going to be creating hygiene SOPs that are measurable and trackable. So I'm just going to get right into it and ask you some questions that I have. So what are the key components that should be included in hygiene SOPs to make them more measurable and trackable?
Kelly Chapel: Yeah, so when it comes to creating SOPs that can be measured and tracked effectively, you really want to focus on a few things. So first, it's important to have clear and specific guidelines for each hygiene procedure so everyone knows what they're doing. needs to be done. Then defining performance metrics helps us gauge how well we're doing.
Documentation requirements ensure that we have a record of our actions and progress and regular auditing processes can help assess our compliance as well as identify any areas that need improvement.
Matthew Gonzales: How can technology be leveraged to enhance the measurability and traceability of SOPs?
Kelly Chapel: So just like anything else, we can definitely utilize technology to simplify our work. Automating data collection allows us to save time and effort and it also allows us to monitor compliance in real time. So if any issues are happening out on the production floor, we can recognize that right away and address it immediately rather than having to go back and fix something that's already, been going on for a long term. The use of technology, it also helps us generate reports and analytics that can give us really valuable insights, especially with the clean tech automated hand washing stations. Those track valuable compliance data that allow us to give a very objective perspective on how well SOPs are actually being followed in facilities.
Matthew Gonzales: So what are some effective methods for establishing baseline measurements and benchmarks for hygiene SOPs?
Kelly Chapel: When it comes to setting a starting point, we often begin by conducting initial assessments or audits to see how well we're complying with hygiene SOPs. Then we compare our findings to industry standards, regulatory requirements, or best practices to get a sense of where we stand.
That helps us set the benchmark and pinpoint areas where we can make improvements.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. How can data from measurable and trackable hygiene SOPs be effectively analyzed and used to drive improvements?
Kelly Chapel: When it comes to analyzing data, we're looking for trends, patterns, areas that we can improve. By studying the data, we can pinpoint any non compliance issues or any opportunities for growth. That allows us to take specific actions, such as implementing interventions, adjusting the training program, making modifications to the SOPs, whatever it may be. Even, allocating our resources differently, just so we can be more effective in that area.
Matthew Gonzales: Are there any regulatory or compliance considerations that organizations should be aware of when developing measurable and trackable hygiene SOPs?
Kelly Chapel: Yeah, it's definitely important for organizations to be aware of any relevant regulations concerning employee hygiene that may apply to their specific local, national or industry guidelines. Making sure their SOPs align with these requirements and incorporating any necessary documentation and reporting processes, it makes the whole compliance aspect a lot easier to achieve.
Matthew Gonzales: Can you share examples of organizations that have successfully implemented measurable and trackable hygiene SOPs and the benefits that they've experienced?
Kelly Chapel: Yeah, we have a handful of customer success stories on our website. One of them is Pecan Deluxe, and you can see a video of their facility in Dallas, Texas just highlighting what they've done to standardize hand washing and footwear sanitation at that plant.
Read the Full Pecan Deluxe Customer Success Story here
With them and, Many other customer success stories that we have available, the successful implementation of measurable and trackable hygiene SOPs has led to, of course, improved compliance rates. It reduces the incidence of hygiene related outbreaks, enhanced operational efficiency is part of it, and just, again, strengthening that overall food safety culture within the organization is huge.
Matthew Gonzales: Yeah. I think that pretty much covers it. I think that creating these hygiene SOPs is a great strategy for improving hand hygiene compliance. I think That's the benchmark that you first need to look at from that perspective. I think overall just analyzing that data and being able to use that and not just having it sit there is huge. Being proactive about it can be extremely beneficial and is extremely beneficial. Thanks Kelly. I appreciate you covering this topic for me. Insights always appreciated.
Kelly Chapel: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Strategy 3: Creating Hygiene Areas that Prevent Circumvention of Key Hygiene Steps
Matthew Gonzales: Now we have Kyle Hanley, who's a Senior Sales Manager here at Meritech. Kyle, why don't you introduce yourself?
Kyle Hanley: Yes, thanks Matt. As Matt said, I'm a Senior Sales Manager for Meritech based in the Chicago area. I've been with the company for three years now.
Matthew Gonzales: Nice, glad to have you with us here covering the strategy number three. Which is creating hygiene areas that prevent circumvention of key hygiene steps, which is crucial. So I'm just going to get right into the questions here. What are the key hygiene steps that are crucial to preventing food contamination in food processing facilities?
Kyle Hanley: I would say the key hygiene steps in food processing facilities typically include handwashing, footwear sanitation, of course, sanitizing surfaces and equipment, having employees wear the appropriate personal protective equipment or PPE, and definitely by controlling cross contamination and proper waste disposal are some of the key steps in in preventing food contamination.
Matthew Gonzales: What are the common areas or points in food processing facilities where circumvention of key hygiene steps may occur?
Kyle Hanley: So common areas where that, could be skipped or circumvented would be: Entry and exit points especially if they're not designated with specific employee hygiene zones within those areas, storage areas, workstations processing equipment, areas where raw material are being handled and then employee break areas and transition zones, if it hasn't been identified as An area where, you know, proper hygiene stations or proper hygiene steps have been put in place for the employees to take advantage of when crossing through those zones.
Matthew Gonzales: How can the layout and design of a food processing facility be optimized to minimize the likelihood of circumvention of key hygiene steps?
Kyle Hanley: Yeah, the layout and design definitely is a big portion of, controlling that. So it should really focus on creating the dedicated hygiene areas that are strategically placed throughout each individual facility based on their needs. So again, to touch on. Definitely for entrances, exits, transition areas from RAW to RTE, for example and they should be designed to facilitate easy access to hand washing stations, sanitizing stations. PPE dispensing areas for, dining and doffing and definitely waste disposal points. Having clearly defined pathways clearly defining where those areas are and what's necessary is the best way to minimize the cross contamination risks.
Learn more about preventing cross contamination risks here
Matthew Gonzales: What are the best practices for signage and visual cues to guide employees and visitors in following the key hygiene steps within the facility?
Kyle Hanley: So for signage and visual cues, they should be, displayed in an area where people are naturally going to look and especially within critical areas having the signs be clear and concise with their instructions or their images. Of course, training the employees at these points as well helps, but it should indicate the location of where, hand washing is taking place where the proper PPE is located. Waste segregation areas and really any specific hygiene protocols relevant to the particular facility. That's really what should be laid out within signage and visual cues and just in areas that are, naturally easy for the employees to see going through their day to day, steps at work.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. Can you provide any examples of innovative or effective hygiene area designs that have successfully prevented circumvention of key hygiene steps?
Kyle Hanley: I would say having color coded zones to separate raw and processed areas, clearly marked entrance and exits for employees entering onto production or exiting off. Having, Meritech systems with integrated controlled access turnstiles is a good way to. Allow that, prevention of circumvention for the hygiene areas.
A lot of good way to track it for sure. Of course, the use of visual cues, like we, we mentioned before, such as floor markings, barriers or signs to make sure that the flow of employees entering and exiting are heading to or from those zones. And that's all going to help prevent cross contamination or someone completely avoiding the necessary hygiene steps.
Matthew Gonzales: What are the potential benefits of creating hygiene areas that effectively prevent circumvention of key hygiene steps in food processing facilities?
Kyle Hanley: The main thing is it's going to result in improved food safety, you're reducing your risk of contamination, product recalls you're just enhancing employee and consumer confidence in your product, and of course you're following and being compliant with regulations and industry standards. So overall, it just creates a positive reputation for your facility and the product you put out by. Following and having proper hygiene zones and areas.
Matthew Gonzales: Yeah, true. And that's something that we at Meritech, I know, could definitely help out with. We offer the hygiene zone design consultation.We've done these, I know, across the globe, literally.
Kyle Hanley: Absolutely, not, not only from starting from square 1 from scratch, helping design a zone and picking out, the proper equipment, but the proper number of, the equipment that's necessary, proper model, all that we can, we have a team here that's able to help with. With all that from square one to just updating an existing zone.
Learn more about the Meritech hygiene zone consultation process here
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. Yeah thanks again for covering strategy three. I think this, creating these hygiene areas is absolutely, like I said, a crucial step. That may be overlooked a lot of times in terms of increasing compliance rates among your facility.
I think that this can be a game changer for a lot of folks. So thanks again, Cal for joining us. We'll go on to the next strategy here shortly.
Kyle Hanley: Thank you, Matt. Thanks.
Strategy 4: Leveraging Technology to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance
Matthew Gonzales: All right. So this next section here that we're going to be doing is leveraging technology to improve hand hygiene compliance. And here I got Rob Ray, who's a senior sales manager here at Meritech. Rob, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Rob Ray: Yeah, absolutely. As Matt said, my name is Rob Ray. I'm a senior sales manager for Miratech and some of my primary responsibilities are consulting with our existing and prospective customers to figure out the best possible solutions to their hygiene needs. We work with large customers, small customers, and everybody in between. I've been in the industry for well over 12 years. This is my second year with Meritech and couldn't be happier to be here.
Matthew Gonzales: Great to have you here, Rob. Yeah, so I guess we can just get started. So my first question I had for you were what are the key considerations when selecting and implementing technology solutions for improving hand hygiene compliance?
Rob Ray: Yeah, it's a really good question, Matt. There are definitely some consistent questions we get from almost every single one of our prospective customers, and they need to make sure that the equipment is easy to use that it's compatible with the existing infrastructure, primarily meaning, is it going to fit in the space that I've got, and are the utilities appropriate to bring in this equipment? First and foremost, because of the environments we work in and the sensitive nature of food packaging, food processing, and manufacturing, the equipment needs to be reliable. It has to do what we say it's going to do, and it has to do it consistently every time. And then, of course, cost effectiveness is also a huge consideration when bringing in any type of capital equipment.
I think this is a great question because these things are It may seem simple to answer, but we definitely take a consultative approach to all of these questions. So we're going to start the conversation with a simple phone call emails back and forth. And then we also progress to what we call a site survey, where we come out to the plan and make sure that we're meeting all of the these key considerations. So what finally ends up as the end product and your end choice is exactly what you need for your facility, for your staff and for your space.
Matthew Gonzales: Nice. Absolutely. Can you provide any examples of specific technology solutions that have been effective in improving hand hygiene compliance?
Rob Ray: Yeah, another great question. I've thought a lot about this question. Handwashing really didn't come to the forefront until the 1840s. And that was primarily in hospitals. So there's been that, it's been quite a long time that handwashing has been seen as a focus and a little bit shorter time period in food processing and manufacturing.
But if you look at the technological advances that have been made during that time, they're really very slim to none until of course Meritech developed the CleanTech® Automated Handwashing Station. So this has really revolutionized the industry and is a game changer when it comes to hand hygiene, compliance and figuring out a quality solution for encouraging people to properly wash their hands.
Matthew Gonzales: What are some strategies for overcoming potential barriers or resistance to adopting technology solutions for hand hygiene compliance?
Rob Ray: Yeah, I think we do this really well at Meritech on. I alluded to this earlier. I think around your first question, we definitely take a consultative approach to figuring out what is the best solution for you. So if that barrier to entry is cost, we're extremely flexible with, the way we break up payments, the way that we can lower that barrier. So those are things that we can help with. If there are facility utility issues, we're onsite walking the plant to make sure that we fully understand what you're working with. So I think that consultative approach is the best way to approach a lot of situations, especially this one. Because of the importance we want to make sure that the technology is correct, the system is correct for the facility, and the end user is happy and employees are using something consistently over time.
Learn more about what it is like to partner with Meritech
Matthew Gonzales: How can technology and data analytics kind of help in monitoring hand hygiene compliance and generate actionable insights for improvement?
Rob Ray: Yeah, another great question. Up until Meritech developed the automated handwashing system, really there were no good ways to monitor compliance consistently because most facilities have a lot of people going through the facility.
It's extremely hard to figure out who's washing properly, who's not bypassing sinks. People put cameras up. They're very difficult to monitor. So there are a lot of challenges, but what the CleanTech® automated hand washing technology does behind the scenes is track every single hand washing event. If you know that there are 70 individuals coming to your plant between 7 and 7: 15 to start 1st shift, and they have to go through your hygiene zone and wash. Prior to entering the facility, you can pull up how many hand washing events occur per hour per day per month. And you can take a look at that data and those analytics and say, wow, I had 50 people between 7 and 7:15 consistently washing their hands. I've got 75 that are supposed to enter the building now. That just reinforces the fact that we need to back up and we need to conduct more training events to make sure that people understand the importance of utilizing the system. And we also are always willing to come out and help to train staff to educate supervisors, just to watch shifts as they go to reinforce from a third party perspective, that training and the importance of washing hands as well.
Number one, it takes the human error out of the equation, which is what the automated handwashing system does takes human error out of it. But also, you said that it's a lot of hard work to do this monitoring to manually sit there and watch. You've got food safety, quality people having to, for lack of a better term, babysit employees and watch them wash hands that takes away from all of the other duties and responsibilities they have throughout the plant. So if we can eliminate that, or at least reduce it significantly, we're opening up a lot of their time to work elsewhere.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. Thanks, Rob. I appreciate you being on and sharing your insights and knowledge. Very much appreciated. Yeah, thanks again.
Rob Ray: Yeah, I appreciate it. Always happy to help.
Strategy 4: Creating a Food Safety Culture Across Your Business
Matthew Gonzales: Now we have Scott Jones, who's the Director of North American Sales for the East here at Meritech. Scott, why don't you introduce yourself?
Scott Jones: Yeah, Scott Jones cover Eastern North America. I live in North Carolina, beautiful state of North Carolina. Been here about eight year and having a good time.
Matthew Gonzales: Sounds good. You're covering our strategy five today, which is creating a food safety culture across your business. I know you have quite a few experience with customers who have done that at their facilities and have a great success actually over the past few years. So I'm just gonna get right into it and ask what does it mean to establish a food safety culture and why is it important for businesses in the food industry?
Scott Jones: Yeah. When you're establishing a food safety culture, it means you're fostering, a shared set of values attitudes and most importantly behaviors that prioritize food safety throughout the organization.
So it's crazy important because we're talking about food, right? So as consumers, we all pretty much assume and depend on the fact that the products we buy and consume are safe to eat. And so that's the heart of what this is all about.
Matthew Gonzales: So what are the key components of building a food safety culture across all levels of the organization?
Scott Jones: A successful food safety culture, it has to start at the top. There has to be an element of leadership commitment, which will in turn allow resources needed so you have the right communication, training, the implementation, constant monitoring, always looking for ways to be even better. So I would say that's the main component is really top down, leadership buy in on it which will in turn. provide those resources to be able to implement it.
Matthew Gonzales: Yeah, it starts at the top. How can businesses ensure consistency and compliance with food safety protocols across different locations or departments?
Scott Jones: Yeah consistency and compliance are definitely key, right? It's all about creating habits. Being repetitive in those habits so that, muscle memory takes over and the behavior is ultimately, yeah, this is the way we do it. This is the steps we do. When entering this area, these are the steps we do for that. It's just yeah, this is the way we do it, and so to help employees create those habits, and especially, when you've got, if it's a big plant, you've got a, seasonal or temp workers, you've got some transient workers going on, you want everybody, to understand what's going on, the biggest things, have visual aids, right? Always be monitoring, reporting, so you're, you know that, The behaviors are being done. Having trade training programs may be tailored for specific roles and functions in different areas of the plant. Again, just keeping educational. This is why, this is what we do and why, rather than do this or you're fired. So really just empower the employee to take pride in the doing their part.
Matthew Gonzales: Are there any tools or technologies that can support the development and maintenance of food safety culture?
Scott Jones: Yeah having the right resources absolutely encourages best behavior, right? Tools and technologies such as, automated hand washing, for instance, can really assist with not only showing commitment to best practices, but, most importantly, providing the most efficient and effective results in the protocols. Absolutely the, having the right tools. Certainly helps everybody, being happy about doing the right thing.
Matthew Gonzales: Oh yeah. How can businesses measure and evaluate the effectiveness of their food safety culture?
Scott Jones: The ultimate and end result a company is trying to achieve is staying out of the news, right? From having an adverse event or a recall. That's the ultimate measure, but. You constantly monitoring and evaluating compliance, right? Once you've got it the systems in place just monitoring and being sure that it's consistent is the key, right? And again, a little easier when everyone understands the why behind the behavior. So again, education, implementation, monitoring and open communication really paves the way.
Matthew Gonzales: Absolutely. Always goes back to that why? Definitely. Can you provide any examples of businesses that have successfully built a strong food safety culture and what benefits they've experienced?
Scott Jones: A successful implementation of food safety culture, it really, it'll lead to improved compliance with regulations, right? The company, there's auditors, there's all kinds of stuff that's industry, regs going on. So this will lead to improved compliance on that. It'll enhance, brand reputation increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. We get more importantly, greater operational efficiencies. And then of course, the most important thing is, reduced foodborne illness incidences, which is what we're all about. Example, of course, our part in this arena is proper hand washing and addressing footwear. We've actually got a few customers we've done testimonials here recently, and Ken's Foods HelloFresh. And one of the things when Ken's Foods they really spoke up about how in implementing our systems in all their plants over the last 14 years has really had a huge part in their overall food safety protocols keep consistency and just guaranteeing compliance with hand washing. Just what we talked about, it, it covered all the bases of making sure it's being done the right way every single time. And again, having new tech and we've, we put in systems 14 years ago, and since then we've upgraded them to the latest model. So they've continued to work with us and it just shows their employees how committed they are to it. Again just creates that whole culture that everybody is proud to be a part of in doing the right thing.
Discover Meritech Customer Success Stories here
Matthew Gonzales: If you leverage these five strategies. They're going to be game changers for your organization. They're going to show that you care about food safety to that higher degree and quality. That's going to resonate with your employees and the consumers. Like you said, keeping you off the news, if they don't hear about, how the sausage is made that's probably a good thing. I think that's pretty good. But yeah thanks again, Scott for covering this last topic for us. Really appreciate it. I think we're gonna go into our live Q and a here in just a moment. But yeah, feel free to ask any questions for any of the strategies that we've mentioned today and we'll see you over there.
Live Question and Answer Session
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Thank you for a great presentation, everyone. Before we have our presenters address your questions. I'd like to remind you that we love to get your feedback. So please take a few moments to complete our webinar survey, which you'll see on your screen right now, or you'll be redirected to it at the end of the program. And now we're going to be set here for our first question that I'm going to direct to Rob. And the question is, how do you prevent recontamination on entry and exit of the hand rauks?
Rob Ray: Yeah, great question. So this comes up quite frequently with a manual hand washing station. It's definitely a concern, especially as you've got people coming in with potentially contaminated hands. They're touching faucets. They're touching levers. There's really a lot of interaction with that sink. So there is definitely an opportunity for recontamination in that situation. With the CleanTech® Automated Hand Washing System it's completely touch free. As you enter the system, your hand's going to two cylinders. You complete the perfect hand wash. There's a six second potable water rinse at the end. You never touch the system. You never touch the cylinders as the next person enters. Fresh water is used. And the water from the previous wash is completely expelled. So very little opportunity for cross contamination with the system.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Okay. Thanks. And I realized that I asked Rob that was assigned to Alison. So forgive me, both of you. I'm going to I'm going to switch over to Alison now and ask another question is how do you handle biofilm built up in the device?
Alison Smith: Yeah. Great question, Stacy. So a couple of different things. So first the way that the 12 second hand wash works is actually a combination of high pressure water as well as our Ultra Pure hand hygiene solution. So that's an antimicrobial solution that's got a high pathogen removal as well as very mild, but that's going through the cylinders every single time a user washes their hands at a CleanTech® station. Also, our systems have a Self Clean feature. So this is a standard feature that's built into some of our models. It's optional on others. And the great thing is that uses a secondary higher concentration sanitizing solution. It runs once a day. Rhat's going to be giving that high concentration sanitize to the hand washing cylinders and also flushing down the lines in the drain. Then the last part I would add about just cleaning and maintenance is, for our partners themselves, which is just like a sink. You would want to have a standard sanitation SOP. that keeps the units clean and maintained on the exterior.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Okay, great. And now we have a question here is is this adaptable for restaurants? I believe this is for Rob.
Rob Ray: Another great question, and I think it really illustrates the adaptability. of the systems and the wide range of systems that we offer. You'll find our automated hand washing systems in facilities that are 1,000,000 square feet that are very difficult, challenging environments and you'll find our systems in daycares and school settings. We do have a number of customers that are restaurants. So definitely adaptable for all different types of spaces. We've got very small compact economical units that would fit in virtually any space. But still come with all the functionality of Give our other systems still provide you with the perfect hand wash every single time still provide you with all of the compliance monitoring and training available via our Interactive touch screen as well.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Okay, great And I think that you were very thorough in that answer So it answered a follow up question that we had on the smaller restaurants and things like that. Thank you .Then the question is, how long is each hand washing event using the machine? So I'll leave it up to you.
Alison Smith: Yeah, I'd love to answer this. So each perfect CleanTech® hand wash is just 12 seconds. And this is something that we have done a lot of different clinical studies on over the three plus decades that the technology has been around. So it's really in that 12 seconds that we're able to achieve. A greater than 99.9 percent pathogen removal while also being very efficient. So the great thing is you get it done in 12 seconds and you have that standardized, consistent wash every single time.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Excellent. This sounds like it's a follow up for a restaurant environment. In my experience, our front of house staff does great. With hand hygiene until they're in the weeds. Any advice on how to emphasize the importance of hand washing, particularly when there's a perception that they can't spare even 30 seconds, otherwise they'll fall behind?
Rob Ray: Sure, the great thing is if they can't spare 30 seconds, the hand wash is only 12. So we reduce the amount of time there, but it really goes back to building that culture of proper hygiene. And this is, one of the best settings to do that in, one of the most important settings to do that in a restaurant especially if you've got front of the house folks we can also help with training. So we're here as a third party, not only just to sell equipment, but to come in and work with that staff and train them.
Often times a third party voice can be more impactful than some of the management team that they hear every single day. And it's just a matter of reinforcing that. Again, by utilizing the technology, not only built into the system, but that we have online and incorporating that into training it just builds that it snowballs that culture of Good and proper hand hygiene over time, right?
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Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): I just love it. We're getting questions from a lot of different settings here. Can this hand washing technology also be used in a farming setting for the harvesting process?
Alison Smith: Yeah. Great question. And I love to see the variety of these industries with questions as well because even beyond, the large food processing, we work with facilities from daycares to cruise ships to restaurants like Rob said. Farming is interesting and certainly there are a lot of agricultural applications where our technology, really does fit. The great thing there is to, consult with our hygiene specialists to determine the right placement for it. Sometimes we'll get farming operations that may be seasonal or maybe they don't have their thinking in the field. So with our technology, you need to have plumbing just like a sink. So you'd want to have access to incoming hot and cold water, a drain, and electrical, but we can get very creative. So we've installed systems in very unusual areas and spaces. Really nothing's impossible. Just consult with us and we can see what would work best for the type of harvesting operations that this individual is asking about.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Terrific. And then how often is the maintenance required on the equipment?
Rob Ray: Yeah. We talked about maintenance in cleaning and then actual maintenance of the system. So cleaning, if you would wash your current sinks once a week, if that's your standard operating procedure, we encourage you to do so with our systems and in our digital owner's guide and throughout our materials online we'll give you instructions on how to properly clean the system, but it's really just a mild disinfecting cleaner and wipe down on your typical SOP schedule. Then as far as maintenance goes, we offer all encompassing hygiene programs. You're going to see our technicians out twice annually for preventative maintenance visits. So at that time, they're going to give. The system a thorough check to make sure everything is operating properly. They will work on cleaning the system as well, do any repairs needed. They're also going to give you a certificate of allegation that the solution draw is what we say it's supposed to be to operate properly. And you're going to need that in an audit setting. So you're going to see our technicians Twice annually. Hopefully you don't have any other issues and you're not going to see them, but with our all encompassing program, we do include our service parts, labor, everything is wrapped into one.
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Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Great. And is there a hand drying component in the machine?
Alison Smith: It's a good question. We get it a lot. Not standard. So we're really focused on the perfect hand washing events. We recommend paper towels. Just as the most hygienic and efficient means to dry hands and majority of the partners that we work with do utilize paper towels currently or can. We do have an optional enhancement to put an air curtain in the system and this can be helpful for really moisture sensitive environments that just want almost like a knockoff step to get their hands drip free as they transition to paper towels or to a secondary drying system that they can't use or elect not to use paper towels.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Okay. And now to sustainability, do, and what do these systems use a lot of water?
Rob Ray: Yeah, Stacey, that is a question that we get daily. Sustainability obviously is very important. Water usage and consumption is very important, especially when you're talking about facilities who use large volumes of water and are looking for every way possible to conserve on water consumption. So our systems use just slightly over a half a gallon of water. The great thing though, about our CleanTech® Automated Handwashing Systems is 100 percent of that water goes to the hand wash. It's going to come in contact with your hands versus a manual wash where you see a tremendous amount of wasted water. If you've ever washed somebody wash their hands with a manual sink, I'm guilty of it myself. We walk up to it, we turn on the water, we get our hands wet, we get a little soap, and the water continues to go down the drain. And that water is completely wasted during that hand washing process. Ultimately when you look at a system, you do have to evaluate, are your folks washing their hands properly to begin with? That's going to be a 20 to 30 second process. If they are, there is a tremendous amount of water savings. So it really is dependent upon facility, but we can tell you that we use slightly over half a gallon and all of it goes towards the hand wash.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Can the automated systems be customized?
Alison Smith: Yeah, it's an interesting question. So the 12 second hand wash itself is a standardized part of the technology, but what's great is that we can customize exactly what's needed to fit your unique food safety and employee hygiene needs. Whether that means you have a need for footwear sanitation we have boot scrubbers. If you have the need to remove debris from footwear, as I mentioned earlier, we have that air curtain enhancement. Really, when we approach and consult with a facility, it's about just understanding what are all the employee hygiene needs of this space and then working with our partners to, recommend the right systems both for their throughput, but also to address all of their hand and footwear needs within a single system.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Great. Does Meritech automated hygiene technology come with training?
Rob Ray: Yeah, we've got a number of resources dedicated to training. It starts with our staff in the field. Just coming out with that initial facility survey to make sure that everything is appropriate for what your needs are all the way down to training modules built right into the system. So you can literally take an employee up to one of our systems, log into the touch screen and show a training video and that training video will show them exactly what's happening, why it's happening, how long it's going to occur and they can move on through the process. So that's very important, especially now when we see a lot of over at facilities folks just don't have time to do all of the necessary training. So we try to take and give you tools that will help speed up that process. And if you visit our website, it's just a wealth of information. There are more documents than you can download, I'm sure, on training and hygiene, and not necessarily just specific to hand hygiene, but to footwear hygiene, how to build culture in your facility, just a number of different topics around hygiene in general.
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Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): And then a follow up are the training videos offered in other languages other than English?
Alison Smith: Yes. We do offer other languages. Yes. So there's a variety and some of them are standard. A lot of our training videos and signage we have in English and Spanish, and then we offer the ability to do additional languages as well. So whether that's on a video or on signage, absolutely would just be something to discuss with a Meritech team member.
Rob Ray: Yeah, and Alison, if I could just add one thing to that. The video component is really key when we start talking about multiple languages in a facility. I was at a facility recently that said that they spoke over 20 different languages in the building. Very difficult for us to make signage in different languages as it would be for anybody.
So when you can give somebody a visual representation of what's actually going to happen during that hand hygiene event, it's really important. That's really powerful and transcends a lot of the language.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Great, and I think we have time for one more. And that is, how long is the system warranty system warranty or, and how long is it?
Alison Smith: I believe, sorry, there was a little bit of background noise, but how long is the system warranty? The warranty is a year. And then I think they're the second half was how long do they last? So if the question is just about, generally how long you the life of the system, it really depends on the environment the upkeep, how well it's maintained, but we've had systems that have been around for 20 years in different environments. So it really just depends on the setting and how much. usage they're getting over that time.
Stacy Atchison (Food Safety Magazine): Okay. Thank you both. This was a really great discussion. But I think we've run out of time, so we had a lot of great questions. So thank you all for for sending those in. And please join me once again in thanking: Alison Smith, Kelly Chapel, Kyle Hanley, Matthew Gonzales, Rob Ray, and Scott Jones for their presentations, as well as today's sponsor, Meritech. If you have any additional questions or comments, we please don't hesitate to click on the email us button that you'll find in the console, and we'll share them with our presenters and they'll get back to you directly.
We appreciate your time and we hope that you found this webinar to be a valuable experience.
