An Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) is a critical part of your Environmental Control Program (ECP). Not only is controlling environmental risks in the food facility and being able to demonstrate effective control through a robust ECP a critical part of a food safety program — it has become a regulatory requirement under the U.S. FDA, USDA/FSIS, and Canada’s CFIA.

An Environmental Control Program (ECP) is a customized system of practices that helps reduce risk of contamination within the processing environment, such as GMP adherence, sanitation, process controls, preventive maintenance and corrective actions, sanitary design, and hygienic zoning – and ensuring all are aligned with the regulatory requirements and/or expectations. Learn how TAG can help!

A well-thought out, risk-based environmental monitoring/testing program will serve as a critical tool for your company review and verification of the effectiveness of your preventive controls.

To determine if your environmental control strategy is effectively monitoring and controlling your environment, regulators will look at all your application of all these strategies, and how they protect your product. They are looking at it from the very same lens, and they will swab all zones, using Whole Genome Sequencing to match anything in their database.

While an onsite review and analysis of your EMPs and ECPs is the ideal way to assess programs to ensure the consistent management of risks, TAG has developed a virtual program by which we can provide a similar review and analysis, looking at your facility “through your eyes.” Contact us to learn more!