How to Glove Up Properly in Food Processing Plants

Safety glove specialist Eagle Protect is spearheading the inaugural Global Glove Safety Day today, September 18, as part of National Food Safety Education Month.

Did you know safety gloves can hold bacteria, viruses, and fungi? That is bad news, considering the amount of food recalls in the food & beverage industry. These microbials can be found on your gloves during and after handling food product.

Now, food processing and food service companies are being urged to accelerate glove safety practices following the most recent spike in product recalls of contaminated food.

"Gloves are meant to protect, not infect," said Steve Ardagh, CEO of Eagle Protect. "Over a hundred billion gloves are used in the US every year yet there is scant awareness of their microbial contamination risks."

The CDC reports that foodborne illnesses impact 48 million Americans each year, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.

As well, a peer-reviewed paper published in July in the Journal of Food Protection spotlighted the variety of pathogens found in an alarming proportion of gloves used in the food industry.

These include Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Anthrax, and various fungi including Aspergillus. An independent test of 2,800 gloves from 26 different glove brands found human fecal indicator organisms in 46% of gloves tested.

Polluted water sources used in manufacturing combined with hazardous chemicals, which can include PFAS, Phthalates and Bisphenol and the absence of any regulatory testing or oversight on arrival, make for a perfect storm of contamination, according to Ardagh.

"There are many factors why food becomes contaminated causing illness to consumers, and it is proven that gloves are one of those factors," said Ardagh. "Cheap gloves can rip easily, immediately opening the door to hand cross-contamination when handling food."

In surveys by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, 58% of respondents' companies had been affected by a product recall in the last five years.

Food contamination can be deadly, as evidenced by the recent Boars Head outbreak with nine deaths and over 50 hospitalizations. The cost to food companies of recalls can be crippling. The average direct cost of a food recall is $10 million, though some have run to hundreds of millions. Further impairments range from an immediate loss in sales and long-lasting reputational damage to litigation, multi-million-dollar fines, incarceration, government regulation, and bankruptcy.

"While poor glove usage is but one of many causes of contamination in food processing and food service, the use of cheap toxic gloves is symptomatic of company culture that diminishes food safety practices," explained Ardagh. "Solutions are readily available, cost-effective, and common sense."