Cleaning and disinfecting a slaughterhouse: plan, products, frequency, visual check and register

This lesson is part of Slaughterhouse and processing specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

At 11:45, the last carcasses are in the cold and the unit looks like what it is: blood on the cones, fat on the tables, feathers in the drains, 30 °C and flies arriving. What happens in the following hour and a half decides the cleanliness of tomorrow's first chicken. This lesson gives the complete method: the seven steps in the right order, the families of products and what each one does, the four settings that make a cleaning work or fail, the frequency of each task, the visual check and the register that proves it was done.

• ✓Explain the difference between cleaning and disinfecting, and why the order is never reversed
• ✓Apply the seven steps of cleaning-disinfection and the four settings (temperature, mechanical action, concentration, time)
• ✓Choose the families of products (detergent, disinfectant) without mistakes, dilute them according to the manufacturer, store and rotate them
• ✓Draw up the unit's cleaning plan (what, who, when, how, check) and keep the register

1. Clean, then disinfect: two actions, one order
2. The seven steps and the four settings
3. Products: families, dilution, storage
4. The cleaning plan: what, who, when, how
5. Checking and proving: eye, finger, swab, register
6. Going further

• •Clean (remove what can be seen) then disinfect (kill what cannot be seen), never the other way round; biofilm forms when you clean badly for several days and resists disinfectant.
• •Seven steps: tidying and dry, warm pre-rinse, detergent, mechanical action, rinse, disinfection with contact time, final rinse and drying; four T.A.C.T. settings: temperature 45-55 °C, action, manufacturer's concentration, time 10-15 min.
• •Product families: alkaline detergent (fat, blood), acid (scale), chlorinated (cheap, inactivated by dirt, fresh solution every day, rinse stainless steel), quaternary ammonium, oxidisers, alcohol; dilution with a measuring device, rotation every 4 to 8 weeks, separate storage, never mixed.
• •Posted cleaning plan: what, frequency, method, who, check; clean zone first, then dirty, then outside; colour-coded brushes; crates washed at every return; pests kept out by doors, covered bins and waste out the same day.
• •Checking: visual with torch, finger, smell before signing; chlorine strips and thermometer every day; swabs after cleaning (fewer than 10 bacteria per cm²); weekly register signed (done / checked), kept for a year.