For butcheries, delis and cold rooms

Listeria does not care that the fridge is cold.

It lives in drains, floor junctions and inside equipment housings. Dry steam reaches all three.

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Supplying steamers since 2013 Supplied and serviced from the Eastern Cape Steam Italy (Italy) and Optima (Korea)

A butcher in blue gloves cutting a rack of ribs on a white worktop

The problem

You already clean this shop harder than most.

What the daily clean does

The saw comes apart every day. Blade, table and guides are washed and rinsed.

What it does not reach

The housing interior, the bearing seats and the inside faces of the blade guard do not.

What the daily clean does

You hose the floor gully. Water in, water out, and the smell improves.

What it does not reach

The slime layer in a drain doesn't rinse away, and drains are a known home for Listeria.

What the daily clean does

Every surface gets chemical and a rinse, daily.

What it does not reach

Every chemical clean needs a perfect rinse, on stainless that raw meat touches next.

Not sure steam reaches into your own gully?

Ask about your shop

Why steam, here

Heat and very little water. The steam itself needs no chemical; detergent is optional.

The saving you can count is chemicals, contract deep cleans and labour. The cost you can't count is a failed swab, a recall or a closure order.

Trays of raw meat cuts stacked on a stainless processing rack

Where it lives

Start with these three

Evaporator fins and coils
They sit in the airflow over your stock, so whatever grows on them spreads through the room. A clean coil also runs more efficiently.
Condensate trays
Standing water in the dark, where a slime layer forms and nothing disturbs it. Steam does, and the vacuum takes it away instead of onto the floor.
Cold room door seals
Always damp, always squeezed, touched by every hand and trolley, and a common place for mould. Steam gets into the folds, and the seal dries quickly.

Inspection

What an inspection asks

An inspector asks two things: what are your surfaces like, and can you show what was done to them? A cleaning record of what was cleaned, how and when answers the second. "We clean nightly" does not. No machine satisfies the regulation on your behalf, and none replaces your swab programme.

What R638 and the Certificate of Acceptability ask for

R638, the food premises regulations

It sets the standard your premises is held to and does not name a cleaning method. No supplier can tell you that a particular machine satisfies it. What a machine can do is make the surfaces it covers easier to keep at that standard.

Read the source

Certificate of Acceptability

Your cleaning method alone does not decide whether you get the certificate. What the inspection looks at includes your surfaces, your equipment and your records, and a documented cleaning process helps with all three.

Read the source

What a cleaning record shows

Can steam get inside a bandsaw or mincer housing?

Yes, with a nozzle. You still strip the saw the way you do now; the steam then reaches the bearing seats and the inside of the housing.

Can I clean a cold room without switching it off?

Yes. Dry steam puts very little water down, so you don't flood a cold floor. Work in sections and keep the door closed where you can. It does raise the humidity while you work.

Is steam safe on the food-contact surfaces meat touches?

Where no detergent is used, it is heat and water only: no chemical residue, and no rinse step.

The drain is where this starts.

Tell a specialist what your drains are like, and they'll tell you which steamer reaches into them.

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