Crate washing is one of those tasks that everybody agrees is done and nobody can prove. When a customer or an auditor asks for evidence, the usual answer is a verbal assurance and a clean-looking crate. Building a record that holds up is not difficult, and it is much easier to design it before it is needed.
What the record has to show
Four things: that a wash happened, when, to what standard, and whether the result was checked. That is it. A date and time, a batch or fleet identifier, the parameters used – temperature, detergent and concentration – and a result, whether that is a visual check, an ATP swab or a full microbiological test. Four fields, and they can live in a notebook at the wash bay.
Why “we always wash them” fails
It is not evidence. An auditor cannot verify a general practice, and neither can a customer investigating a problem. What can be verified is a record of what happened to a specific set of crates on a specific day. The difference in credibility between the two is large and the difference in effort is small.
Designing it for the people doing it
A record that takes three minutes to complete will be completed. One that takes fifteen minutes will be filled in at the end of the shift, in batches, with approximate values – and it will be worth less than nothing, because it looks like evidence and is not. The test is whether the person running the wash can complete it while the wash is running.
What to check, and how often
Visual checks on every batch are reasonable. ATP swabs weekly, or per crop change, give a number that trends. Full microbiological testing is usually reserved for a customer requirement or a problem. The value of a trend is that it shows a decline before it becomes a failure, which is the entire point of keeping the record.
Linking the record to the crate
If crates carry an identity – a moulded asset number, a batch colour – the wash record can be tied to a group of crates, and a problem can be traced back to a wash batch. That is a meaningful upgrade and it is why identity marking is worth specifying at purchase. The traceability side is covered in labelling and traceability on reusable fruit boxes.
What to do with failures
Record them. A wash record with no failures looks like a record that is not really being checked, and it invites exactly the question nobody wants. A record showing a failed swab, a re-wash and a pass is far more credible, and it shows the system works. Where failures cluster at a particular point in the week or with a particular crop, that is the useful information the record produces.
Where records go wrong
The common failure is a record completed in batches at the end of the week, from memory. It looks neat and it is worthless, because it cannot show a trend and it will not survive a question. A record written at the time, in pencil, with the occasional crossing-out is far more credible than a tidy one reconstructed later.
The second failure is recording only the passes. A system that shows nothing but compliant results looks like a system where failures are not being recorded, which is a worse position than showing them. Where a wash genuinely passes every time, record the checks that were done – the temperature, the concentration, the swab result – rather than just the conclusion.
What we can do
We supply produce crates designed to be washed to a verifiable standard, with surfaces a swab can actually reach. Tell us what your customers require and we will say whether our crate design supports it.