Cleaning records and inspections

What a steam clean gives you when somebody asks how you cleaned it.

An inspector wants to know what was cleaned, when, by whom and with what. Our steamers change the last answer. Keeping the record is still your job.

Talk to a specialist See what you can show

Supplying steamers since 2013

On paper

What you can show an inspector

Your cleaning record. Whoever runs the steamer writes down what was cleaned, when, at what setting and by whom. If EcoSteam does the work, you get a service report with the same details.

After we clean your kitchen. When our local cleaning service steam-cleans your kitchen, we give you a date-stamped certificate of compliance for your health inspection records. It says what was cleaned and when: a record of the clean, not an approval.

What it adds up to. What you hold is evidence that you cleaned, which is one part of what an inspector looks at.

Who keeps it. You do. Every one of these documents is yours to file and to hand over when somebody asks.

The inspection

Four questions, and where steam helps

What did you clean, and when?

A record answers it, and a memory does not. Write the job down at the time, not at the end of the month.

Note the steamer and its setting in the same entry.

What did you clean it with?

Steam: heat and very little water. No chemical goes on the surface unless you add detergent.

This is where steam changes the answer.

What is left on the surface afterwards?

Nothing you have to account for, where no detergent was used. No chemical film to rinse and no safety data sheet to hold.

Any detergent you add through the injection socket goes in the record, like any other chemical.

Can the equipment itself be cleaned?

The Optima SE II is built for it: SJE Corporation makes its body in 304 stainless steel as well as its boiler, which suits a wash-down area.

We supply the SE II for factories and food plants.

The rules

R638 and the Certificate of Acceptability

Both apply to every food premises in South Africa.

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.

What R638 covers, and where to read it

The regulation that governs how food premises are built, maintained and kept clean, and the rules a municipal environmental health practitioner inspects against.

Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food and Related Matters, R638 of 22 June 2018, made under the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act 54 of 1972. It replaced R962 of 2012 and R918 of 1999.

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.

What the Certificate of Acceptability is, and who issues it

The certificate a food premises must hold, issued by the municipality after inspection.

Issued by the local authority under R638. Certificates issued under the repealed regulations expired on 22 June 2019, so every food premises should now hold one issued under R638. It must be displayed on the premises, or produced on request where displaying it is impractical.

Read the source

Other rules may also apply to your business. Your local authority can tell you which.

The record

What to write down

Keep it short, and the same every time.

The date and the time. What was cleaned, named so somebody else could find it: the extraction canopy, the bandsaw, the cold room door seals, the floor drain in the prep area. Who did it. The steamer and the setting. Anything unusual you found.

Keep it where you can find it in under a minute. A folder on the office wall beats a spreadsheet nobody can open.

If we do the work, our service report records the site, the date, what was cleaned, and the steamer and settings we used. It covers only what we cleaned.

See commercial deep cleaning

Questions

Questions about inspections

Does buying a steamer make my premises compliant?

No. Nothing you buy makes your premises compliant. Compliance is your premises, your practices and your paperwork, assessed by your local authority. A steamer changes how you clean and what you can show about it.

Do you issue a certificate?

Yes. When our local cleaning service steam-cleans a kitchen, we issue a date-stamped certificate of compliance for your health inspection records. It doesn't replace your Certificate of Acceptability, which only your local authority issues.

Will an inspector accept a steam clean instead of a chemical clean?

That is your inspector's decision. Where no detergent is used, steam leaves no chemical residue, which is one less thing to explain. Ask your local authority directly, and take this page with you if it helps.

Tell us what you are up against.

Send us the finding, the photo or the letter. A specialist will tell you what steam will and won't do about it, and whether it is the right answer.

Send us the finding Or WhatsApp us