The most reputable food services companies, like Southern Salads, have been very vocal in their support of more stringent safety guidelines; consumer confidence has been undermined by a number of recent high profile incidents. Southern Salads see compliance with current legislation
as the minimum requirement and seek to achieve even higher internal standards; this is not a trivial endeavour. Even large and well-resourced companies benefit from outside expert assistance from time
to time.

Ecolab has been successfully providing specialist advice and consultancy since its inception in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1923. Since this time Ecolab has always led the market in innovation with more than 4,000 product and application patents. With a turnover in excess of $4.5 billion and around 23,000 associates worldwide, Ecolab today is the world's largest provider of cleaning, food safety and health protection products for the hospitality, foodservice, healthcare and industrial markets.

Maintaining high levels of hygiene is critical. But just throwing money at the problem is never the best solution. What is required is a system which works, is simple to operate and is cost-effective to the organisation concerned. That is where an association with Ecolab offers significant benefits.

Ecolab associates are expert in the food service business and understand the quality, time and cost pressures companies working in the sector are subject to. Ecolab will work in partnership with
their clients to establish a cleaning programme
which delivers the high quality required by the consumer whilst minimises the direct costs and ensures maximum process equipment availability. The Ecolab Service Package including application

equipment, auditing tools, operative training all ensure the customer gains the value from
the product.

Ecolab has been working with Southern Salads to improve the already high standards adopted by the company. Like most salad processors, Southern Salads' produce is moved around the factory and washed in a flume system. During processing this flume water will become contaminated with micro-organisms and biomass which can affect the quality of the product and build up on the processing equipment. It is essential to control this contamination building up to ensure food safety and the efficiency of the process equipment.

In common with many other processors, Southern Salads had been using a chlorine-based system to manage the flume. Chlorine based approaches can be environmentally undesirable, can lead to health and safety problems in the work place and if not effectively controlled lead to product taint. In recognition of changing consumer demands and internal health and safety Southern Salads approached Ecolab for an alternative solution.
Ecolab suggested its state-of-the-art Tsunami® 100 system. Tsunami® 100 is an EPA registered (and approved by the US Department of Agriculture) antimicrobial process aid that reduces 99.9% of E-coli, Lysteria and Salmonella pathogens in fresh-cut, further processed and post-harvest fruit and vegetable processing waters.

Tsunami® 100 is not a product it is a treatment program. The combination of an effective product, Tsunami® 100, with the appropriate application equipment is the key do deliver not only optimum flume hygiene, but to do it consistently. Consistent hygiene will lead to increased consumer satisfaction, reduced wastage and optimised process efficiency. A key feature of delivering consistency is the capability of the system to measure and control the active biocidal component. This is in stark contrast to inferior solutions from other providers which rely on less accurate parameters. The Tsunami® 100 system helps Southern Salads ensure that it's washing and flume systems are maintained in the most cost effective hygienic status possible.

Tsunami® 100 is just one of a wide range of programs and services for the Food and Beverage Industry on offer from Ecolab. These include Livestock Disease Intervention programmes, Advanced Sanitation Technologies, Personal Hygiene programmes, Antimicrobial Treatments and Operational Productivity Services.

You can find out more about Ecolab and its commitment to providing the food service industry with the best technology and advice available anywhere, at www.ecolab.com.