It started as a relatively small project to have the production processes for dairy products kosher and halal certified. It resulted in a complete transition to food-safe lubricants. This reduced the error margin for mixing conventional and food-safe lubricants to zero at the Arla Foods dairy plant in Nijkerk.
As QA Specialist at Arla Foods in Nijkerk, Anouk Bouwhuis is responsible for kosher and halal certification. During this certification process, the general use of food-safe lubricants also came up for discussion. These specific lubricants pose no direct danger to food safety or public health, even in the exceptional case that they come into contact with products.
Transition to Kosher and Halal
In critical and various other applications within the production process, Arla was already using food-safe lubricants, but there were also applications where this was not yet the case. “That was a deliberate choice,” says Ruud Siewe, Maintenance Team Leader. “In the end, the transition to kosher and halal provided an extra incentive to fully switch to food-safe lubrication, in order to reduce the error margin when mixing conventional and food-safe oil to zero. This eliminates the risk of conventional oil being used in areas where it could pose a risk to public health.”
Our advice
Ramon Kaufmann, Technical Account Manager at Van Meeuwen Lubrication, gives an example:
“My colleagues perform lubrication maintenance here three days a week, but production runs 24/7. Occasionally, Arla employees need to top up oil or grease. If there are no conventional lubricants on site anymore, the chance of mistakes is zero.” Bouwhuis adds: “The switch to fully food-safe lubrication also makes it easier for us to demonstrate that there are no food safety risks.”
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