Control of the quality of the food process includes employee hygiene, equipment sanitation, and proper process temperatures to control microbial hazards in the product. It also includes the container that holds the product. All safety measures are meaningless if a safe product is stored in an unsanitary container. Although sanitizing your containers prior to filling with your product may be seen as an additional expense, it is an important step. This guide provides an outline of things to consider when handling containers destined to hold a food product.
Discussion Having safe, sterile containers is of concern when processing hotfill products.
Hot-fill products are typically heated in a kettle, then pumped or poured into containers without additional cooking. A retorted product undergoes an additional cooking step, which sterilizes the product, after filling the product into containers. A retort is equipped to cook under pressure, allowing temperatures above 212 F, and is a large version of a stovetop pressure cooker. In the retort process, the container is sterilized along with the product. While a pre-cleaning of the container to remove dust and debris is certainly desirable from an aesthetic standpoint, it is not a requirement since retorting removes the microbial hazard.