We are pleased that Dr. Michael Fisher has joined the FTCLDF website as a regular contributor. Dr. Fisher is a retired United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) veterinarian, bringing decades of experience enforcing FSIS regulations during the slaughter and processing of animals for which the USDA provides inspection services. Dr. Fisher is thrilled to bring you his expertise and guidance to help you navigate regulatory compliance. His goal is for small, USDA-inspected meat processors to succeed and to understand how to best maintain compliance and reduce regulatory issues.
Dressing Rooms, Lavatories, and Toilets
This is the last article in a series about facilities. Dressing rooms, lavatories, and toilets are a life necessity. We do not talk about them much, but we cannot avoid them. If you prepare food for human consumption, they are essential because this is where you maintain your personal hygiene. The intent of 9 CFR 416.2(h) is to encourage clean dressing rooms, lavatories, and toilets. Clean dressing rooms, lavatories, and toilets promote clean persons preparing and handling product.
9 CFR 416.2(h)(1) requires that “Dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals must be sufficient in number, ample in size, conveniently located, and maintained in a sanitary condition and in good repair” and “separate from the rooms and compartments in which products are processed, stored, or handled.” The FDA Food Code contains standards for number and size of dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals. FSIS publishes the FDA standards in its directives. However, numerical FSIS regulatory standards for number and size of dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals do not exist. Allegations of noncompliance based on the number and/or size of dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals are unsupportable. Separation is self-explanatory. We cannot have employees preparing product, storing, or handling food for human consumption in dressing rooms and toilet/urinal rooms.
9 CFR 416.2(h)(2) requires “Lavatories with running hot and cold water, soap, and towels,” in or near toilet and urinal rooms and other places in the establishment. The existence of running hot and cold water, soap, and towels is mandatory; however, their use is not. Allegations of noncompliance based on employee failure to use hot and cold water, soap, and towels are unsupportable.
9 CFR 416.2(h)(3) requires refuse receptacles that protect “against the creation of insanitary conditions and the adulteration of product.” Refuse receptacles hold trash generated by employees using dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals. The absence of receptacles means that the trash goes on the floor and other surfaces. Allegations of noncompliance based on the absence of refuse receptacles are supportable, even in the absence of trash on the floor. Allegations of noncompliance based on the presence of trash on the floor in the presence of refuse receptacles are unsupportable.
Conditions
To say that the 9 CFR 416.2(h) is outdated is not a stretch. The requirements first appeared in the 1938 edition of 9 CFR 8.4, along with shape and number requirements for cuspidors in which employees would spit chewed tobacco. The number and size of dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals; the existence of running hot and cold water, soap, and towels; and the presence or absence of receptacles are not definitive determinates of insanitary conditions.
The only standard that applies is whether or not conditions in dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals are sufficient to prevent the creation of insanitary conditions and to ensure that product is not adulterated. 9 CFR 416.2(h)(1) requires that dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals are separate from rooms in which products are processed, stored, or handled. Insanitary conditions only exist in locations where product is prepared, packaged, or held. Product cannot be adulterated where no product is present. So, how can conditions in dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals be insanitary or adulterate product when product is never processed, stored, or handled in dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals? It can’t. 9 CFR 416.2(h) noncompliance exists when employees using dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals physically transfer contaminants from dressing rooms, toilet rooms, and urinals to rooms where employees prepare, store, or handle food for human consumption.
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