Canadian Quality Milk On-Farm Food Safety Program - Centre ...

Canadian Quality Milk
Introduction
Producing safe milk is possible on a continuous basis if every person involved with
milking works consistently. Best management practices are the
foundation of a food safety program. Establishing standard
operating procedures (SOPs) is the first step in applying BMPs in
a consistent manner. Consistency with a repetitive task, such as
milking, is necessary not only to produce safe milk, but also to
produce it efficiently.
Standard operating procedures help you and your staff to:
• Know which animals produce milk that cannot go into the
bulk tank - to prevent contamination of milk in the bulk tank.
• Ensure that all staff
wear clean clothing
for each milking.
Clothing soiled by
manure or bedding
can carry bacteria
such as E. coli.
• Practice good
personal hygiene by
washing hands.
• Apply the same milking routine to each milking - essential to obtain good milking
performance.
SOPs need to be posted or readily accessible and regularly updated. Employees need
to be trained and SOPs need to be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure consistency.
Samples of some standard SOP forms can be found in the Workbook in Chapter C.
5.1 PRE-MILKING
To ensure cattle are milked with clean and properly functioning equipment, a pre-milking
SOP is an important part of your CQM Program. The SOP must contain enough
information to ensure that a relief milker can set up the system to start milking in a
manner that ensures the safety of the milk (i.e. cattle are milked with clean and properly
functioning equipment). You can use the Workbook (Chapter C – SOPs) to describe
step by step the various actions that are taken on your farm during pre-milking.
You should consider the following Best Management Practices when you develop your
own SOP, but you must include the Best Management Practices that are shaded
grey. Your SOP should be posted in a visible location in the milk room or kept in a
location easily accessible by all employees:
Check the permanent and temporary records of
treatment and ensure that all treated, lactating animals
(and dry animals if they are housed with lactating
animals) are located and have treated animal
identification.
Check for animals whose milk is unfit for human
consumption (i.e. colostrum, clinical mastitis, etc.).
Check milk contact surfaces for cleanliness.
June 2010 5—3