Part 4 of our series discusses effective ways of managing hygienic zones and environmental monitoring zones that ensure that cross-contamination risks can be prevented, eliminated, or significantly minimized.

In Part 3 of this series, we will focus on the importance of laying out an appropriate food processing environment and controlling the processes effectively to minimize the risk of product contamination.

Read on for 6 of our top questions and answers from our recent hygienic design webinar.

In this blog, we will explain why hygienic design matters when considering the selection and installation of food processing area equipment and facilities.

During our Food Safety Culture webinar, industry experts discussed how simple techniques, such as the use of color-coding, helps employees practice food safety behaviors consistently and promotes a culture of producing safe and high-quality food.

At IAFP 2023, over 3,500 food safety professionals from about 58 countries came together to advance the best-in-class science, technology, and policy developments on food safety and sanitation through their participation.

During our Hygiene in Food Retail webinar, we took audience questions. Here are the top 6.

During our “Hygiene in High-Risk Food Production: Keep it Clean and Chill” webinar, Deb Smith from Vikan and David Buckley from Diversey discussed the key food hygiene and sanitation challenges and solutions associated with high-risk food production facilities.

A question we get asked a LOT about is the use of sponges and scourers for cleaning and, like most things in the food industry, the answer should be based on risk assessment.

2022 might have been labeled as the year of a triple whammy. The continuing COVID-19 pandemic (though waning down in certain regions and countries), the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and ensuing climate change characterized by floods, hurricanes, and elevated temperatures – all...

Remco and Vikan hygiene experts answer the top 5 audience questions from our 5S and food safety webinar.

In this, our final Blog in the series, we’ll look at the EU and U.S. food safety and hygiene regulatory requirements, key industry and global standard requirements, and the best sanitation practices that support a manual cleaning operation.

In part five, we are going to briefly focus on understanding the relevant departments involved during the cleaning and sanitation process within a food facility.

In part four, we will explain the basics of how to identify the locations or areas that require cleaning, and how to determine how often they’ll need cleaning. These steps are very important for the establishment of the consistently sanitary environment required for safe food...

In this third part of our six-part Blog on cleaning, we address the key question: how is the manual cleaning process typically implemented?

What foods do you associate with Salmonella? Most likely your answer will be raw meat and eggs, not flour or nuts. Nevertheless, Salmonella is a very resistant bacterium and can survive in all kinds of foods.

One of the great things about working for an organisation like Vikan is that I get to support the food industry and advance food safety through many different avenues. I was involved with a CampdenBRI member-funded research project to update guidelines.

This blog post focuses on how you avoid the worst potential pitfalls of a new colour-coding system.

Do you know how important the mechanical action applied during cleaning is in removing biofilms? If you don’t already know, you’ll find the answer here.

Here are some of the key things to be aware of when you’re planning to colour code.

Advice to hotels, restaurants and catering (HoReCa) establishments on hygiene measures prior to re-opening.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is having an impact on us all. To ensure the continued provision of key products and services at this time, governments around the world have identified ‘key workers’ whose activities are critical to the COVID-19 response.

Food handling utensils like buckets, scoops, scrapers, and shovels play an essential role in food processing environments. As food contact surfaces themselves, food handling utensils should possess characteristics that enhance food safety rather than create additional risks.

Why should your cleaning tools and utensils be color coded? It is a question we’re often asked, even though it makes sense to many. Here is how we answer the question.

This blog post provides information on selection and maintenance of food industry cleaning tools and utensils, with regard to minimising the risk of product contamination by foreign bodies.

Easy to clean Vikan Ultra Safe Technology products have delivered an outstanding cleaning standard for a large UK deli and meats manufacturer.

Food industry customers often ask us about the best way to clean up glass breakages and the resulting debris. Fortunately, Vikan has experienced Customer Service and Technical Sales Teams, and a dedicated Hygiene Team ready to help you with good practical advice about this.

Cross-plant colour coding for hygiene equipment boosts effectiveness in four Refresco beverage bottling plants in Germany.

How to minimise allergen cross-contamination using colour-coded equipment and colour-coded site segregation.

Vikan Declarations of Compliance(DoC) are your guarantee that Vikan plastic cleaning equipment and food handling tools contain no toxic substances that could contaminate food. Vikan DoCs are clear, easy to read and always up to date.

Get valuable insights from Dr. Phil Voysey to where to look for listeria in a food production and how to prevent cleaning tools from cross contaminating. Learn more about listeria and read Dr. Phil Voysey’s blog post here.

What’s in a brush? Well, it’s a question we take very seriously – and quite literally. As a matter of fact, you can trace the entire 125-year history of our company by examining the materials that comprise the products we make.

If you produce chilled, ready-to-eat foods, you’ll need to know where you have to clean to avoid food contamination. This post details the most common Listeria hideouts – and how to clean for this dangerous bacteria.

Today, the best way to make your investment in Vikan profitable is to have a customised site survey carried out. In sectors with high hygiene requirements, such as food preparation environments, the inspection of cleaning equipment is essential in any effective hygiene man...

During our travels and many site visits, we are often asked: “What makes Vikan different from our competitors?” Well, the short answer is our company’s purpose.

Don’t rush. Take a breath and start paying careful attention to the buckets in used in the food and beverage sector.

Storage of cleaning equipment is a hot topic within the food industry and quite rightly so! What are the best options available for you?

Finding the right Vikan squeegee for the right job helps you raise hygiene standards as well as boosting your employees’ job satisfaction.

What information is mandatory in a Declaration of Compliance (DoC)? The nine items you need in a DoC.

According to the CDC, 1 in 6 Americans become sick by eating contaminated food every year, resulting in an estimated 3,000 deaths. As if the human cost isn’t sobering enough, the Grocery Manufacturers Association also estimates the average cost of a recall to a food company is...

According to the CDC, an estimated 1.2 million Americans a year get sick from Salmonella infections. Of these, around 23,000 are hospitalized and approximately 450 people die.

Remco Products has partnered with Top Dog to offer a line of food-safe aprons, gowns, and sleeves. Top Dog offers a line of reusable die-cut color-coded worker protection gear that perfectly complements Remco and Vikan’s core color offerings.

Remco Products competed as a finalist in two of seven categories at the 2017 Process Expo’s Innovation Showcase with its new Color-Coded Lobby Dustpan Set. The new offering, developed by a strategic partner, won top honor in the Pet Foods category.

Food production facilities often rely on color coding their tools and workstations to create zones of control. These zones can designate areas where allergens are used to prevent cross-contact incidents, separate raw – from finished products to avoid cross-contamination issues...

Remco Products Corporation, which has been operating out of Zionsville for over 30 years, has recently undergone significant growth. The plastics company makes color-coded hygienic material handling tools and is the exclusive US partner of Vikan, a hygienic brushware company o...

Sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain. These five principles comprise the 5S lean manufacturing method that originated in Japan. While 5S can help any organization, the principles contained in the alliterative method should especially appeal to those in food proces...

Food processors have a new choice in lobby dustpan and broom sets. Remco Products is putting out a high-quality lobby dustpan set made of FDA-approved materials. The handles are made of sturdy aluminum and the dustpan itself is made of polypropylene, a durable and food-safe pl...

Remco Products will be at IPPE in Atlanta from Jan. 31st to Feb. 2nd. The company, one of the nation’s leading suppliers of hygienic color-coded tools for the food industry, will be showing off some of their products in their nine bright colors.

In the food processing industry, like many factory-based jobs, employee turnover is high. When you’re seeing a turnover rate of about 35% yearly, how do you train your staff to follow important safety plans?

For the convenience of our customers, we now offer our catalogs in two additional languages.

Remco now offers product selection guides to help you and your customers pick the most effective products for your needs. Each guide contains specifications for all the variations of the product it features, along with information about brush fibers, hygienic design, and the a...

Color-coding benefits everyone from the company CEO to individual workers. Selling your organization on color-coding is as easy as learning what appeals to each position, and presenting the benefits. Whether you’re a plant safety officer or a salesperson at a distribution comp...

Corporate standardization is an effective tool for streamlining sanitation programs across multiple production facilities. Over the past several months, Remco has been working with several large food manufacturers to implement standardization programs.

Manufactured with no joint between the handle and brush head, the brush removes a common repository of contaminants.

Cleaning between and around pipes is made easier with the curved design of the hook brush.

This brush is excellent for scrubbing in difficult to reach areas or areas where you only have limited space.

POSTED ONMARCH 3, 2016EDIT"NEWSLETTER – Q1, 2016" Newsletter – Q1, 2016 Ultra Safe Technology by Vikan What’s New October 2015 marked Remco’s 30th anniversary. Our business was founded on the idea that talented people, quality products and exemplary customer support would...

ZIONSVILLE, IND. (July 25, 2013) To make color-coding food processing facilities easier, and to give processors more tools at their disposal, Remco Products has published a blog series, 10 Things to Know About Color-Coding.

We’ve come to the final post in our series of 10 things to know when starting or revising a color-coding program. You may have already determined that color-coding is the solution for your facility’s food safety needs.

Essential to an effective color-coding system is a well thought-through communication plan. With the proper communication channels in place, your color-coding system has the best chance for successful adoption—in turn helping you to mitigate the risk of cross-contamination.

With the signing of the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011, many food processors are taking proactive steps by instituting color-coding as part of their Good Manufacturing Practices.

In food processing, proper maintenance is important for assuring a sanitary processing facility.

The core piece of advice that Remco communicates to food facilities implementing a color-coding program is to keep it simple. A common paraphrase of Occam’s Razor, originally written in Latin, is “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.”

Use this worksheet to help you map a custom color-coding program at your food processing facility.

The environment in a food processing facility can be a chaotic place. This is compounded when you bring multiple languages into the mix. Trying to keep everything organized and streamlined can at times be a daunting task.

Recalls are serious business. No one wants to see a recall happen to their company, but it happens all too often. So, it goes without saying that food safety is important. From the field all the way to the table, keeping our food safe has to be a top priority.

If your business is food processing, you are no stranger to government rules, regulations, and auditors. Complying with federal food safety regulations is crucial to the success—or even existence—of your operation.

While the FDA does not currently have any standard set rules to follow when it comes to implementing a color-coding program, there are some common best practices that you can follow to get the most out of color-coding the facility.

Remco has developed a handy checklist that you can use to determine if color-coding might support the food safety efforts at your facility, such as HACCP compliance and requirements of FSMA.

Just about every food processor knows that complying with food safety regulations from the FDA and other regulatory bodies is a vital aspect to the success of their overall operation. Without achieving this compliance, it would be fairly difficult to run an effective food proc...

In this third part of our color-coding series, we discuss how color-coding can help prevent cross-contamination in food processing facilities. Facilities with cross-contamination concerns should particularly consider color-coding their food processing plants to lower that risk.

To give your Remco Products and Vikan tools a longer lifespan, there are a few care instructions you should follow, including using proper autoclave temperatures, storage methods, and cleaning procedures.

The first point was: All types of food processing facilities can benefit from a color-coding program. Whether the facility is concerned with cross-contamination or not, any food processing center can benefit from color-coding. Color-coding helps keep the work area sanitary, an...

Not only does it help prevent cross-contamination due to pathogens, allergens and foreign contaminates, color-coding has a variety of other uses.

Remco Products has added an eighth color to its line of HACCP-compliant color-coded products. With 21 products now offered in purple, users can select from a variety of cleaning and material handling tools in this vibrant new color.

For the problem of ceiling condensation, Remco offers a newly designed ceiling squeegee from Vikan®, and will feature the new tool at the IFT Food Expo® 2012.

After multiple requests throughout the years, Remco Products is pleased to offer a fourth hand scoop as a complement to its existing line of hand and bowl scoops.

Remco Products is now offering 7011/7013 paddles in all five colors. They provide a stiff or flexible option for mixing, stirring and scraping applications and can be used with any of Remco’s color-coded European-thread handles.

Help prevent quality lapses before they happen. Remco is pleased to offer yet another color-coded tool option in the fight against cross-contamination and allergen separation.