Microbial Harborage Site Investigations
What is a Harborage Site?
A Harborage Site is a growth niche in which bacteria or other microorganisms can reside and grow for months and possibly years. Harborage sites have the following characteristics:
- Are hard to reach during routine cleaning and sanitation.
- Tend to have product, debris, or soils that have not cleared from the processing environment.
- In wet processing or wet sanitation environments, the presence of standing or pooled water is a risk factor (may present with foul odors and slime).
- Can seed transfer points with spoilage or pathogenic microbes.
- May ultimately result in direct-product-contact surface (Zone 1) and product contamination.
Growth niches are frequently the “root cause” or source of environmental, food contact surface, or product contamination. The greatest risk niches are most commonly found on (or in) equipment.
What Causes Harborage Sites?
- Poor sanitary design.
- Lack of facility maintenance.
- Inadequate operational and sanitation practices.
- Product debris that works its way into an un-cleanable location.
- This is made worse by:
- Mid-shift cleanup.
- Use of high-pressure water or air hoses during cleaning.
Harborage sites must be designed out of the system, or managed with superior process control because the potential to support growth still exists within the machine, part, or area. Whenever process control is the path chosen, implement procedures and practices for continued compliance, even when there is hourly or management turnover.
Confirming Harborage Sites
Step 1. Equipment disassembly.
Step 2. Swabbing or sampling of equipment in disassembled state.
- Test swabs and samples for OOS
Step 3. Clean equipment and area; reassemble.
Step 4. Strain typing of isolates; used to determine extent and number of harborage sites.
- Serology
- Whole Genome Sequencing
Step 5. Repeat Steps 1-4 until all sites are identified and confirmed.
How Can Eurofins Help?
- Harborage Site Management – we offer recommendations on effective sanitation solutions for harborage site control.
- Transfer Points – we offer transfer point identification and remediation solutions, including differentiating growth niches from transfer points.
- Implementing Corrective and Preventive Actions for Growth Niches and Transfer Points – we help develop and integrate your control plan with a full facility and control program review that includes EMP, GMP, and Sanitation.
- Environmental Investigations – using our team of seasoned investigators, we deploy an advanced array of observational and testing solutions to map your facility and identify trends. Through vector sampling and testing, we help prove a root cause and validate the effectiveness of corrective actions.
- Routine and Investigational Testing – we can rapidly be on-site during events, and, backed by the resources of the Eurofins Laboratory Network, have the tools necessary for strain typing and source tracking to confirm harborage For routine testing, we offer real-time heat mapping of your environmental monitoring results and trend tracking over time. This gives our customers pre-event warnings to take action before costly recalls occur, and before exposing customers to potentially harmful products.
In every environmental investigation, the primary consideration is to sort through the TRANSFER POINT positives in order to find the GROWTH NICHE positives. Only then will you find the TRUE CAUSE.
A harborage investigation is not quick; it will likely take four to six weeks to complete.
