So, which comes first, clean-in-place systems or plant design? All too often, it is the plant design that comes first, and then processors have to retrofit — at great cost — their equipment to be clean-in-place (CIP).
Although meat and poultry processors aren’t affected directly by the Food Safety Modernization Act’s upcoming regulations on HACCP documentation (due to already following HACCP procedures for 20 years under USDA-FSIS), it never hurts to reassess the sanitary design of their CIP or open-plant cleaning (OPC) systems.