Prevent cross-contamination to protect RTE baked goods

Creating a barrier isn’t necessarily all bad. Neither are travel restrictions. When it comes to establishing food safety, bakeries need to draw a line between the raw and post-baked production zones. It doesn’t matter if it’s an existing facility or when building a new one.

“The biggest and first thing they need to do is establish both physical and operational separation between mixing and raw dough handling and the post-baking step that includes cooling, finishing and packaging products,” noted Larry Van Nort, general manager Americas, AIB International.

“You can either use barriers or floor markings if you don't have the physical wall, and then you need to enforce a one-way flow traffic from raw to bake,” he added. “You don't want anyone going from finished back to raw.”

In addition, bakeries need to consider one more variable that may be harder to control.

“A third part of this equation is the use of air handling as a segregation measure, ensuring that any dust or aerosol will move away from the sensitive areas and that the factory has clean air all the time,” said Pablo Coronel, senior fellow, food process and safety, CRB.

In many facilities, the biggest food safety threats are hiding in the nooks and crannies, said Richard Walsh, senior staff scientist at Ecolab.

“As commercial bakeries have become increasingly mechanized over the years, the number of potential niches and microbial hotspots hiding in plain sight has multiplied,” he observed. “Floor drains, ventilation units, hollow conveyor rollers and hard-to-reach equipment components –– these harborage points can be hard to reach, clean and sanitize properly, which contributes to microbial risks that can multiply right under your nose.”

Cataloging these harborage points, he added, is step one.

“Integrating those findings into your environmental monitoring program –– by, for example, swabbing and sanitizing more frequently and standardizing escalation procedures –– is step two,” Walsh said.

In existing bakeries, improving food safety between raw and ready-to-eat (RTE) products requires a combination of practical facility adjustments, operational discipline and clearly defined traffic control policies, advised Taylor Butler, food safety specialist with Commercial Food Sanitation, an Intralox company.

Even when structural limitations are present, she pointed out that bakeries can establish effective separation by defining zones for raw, RTE and non-production areas.

“Visual controls such as floor markings, signage and physical barriers, including curtains or partial walls, can support this separation,” Butler said. “Where feasible, airflow should be managed to maintain positive pressure in RTE spaces. Mobile equipment, utensils, racks and containers should be dedicated to specific hygienic zones to prevent cross-contamination. In addition, process flow should move in a single direction, progressing from raw handling through baking, cooling and packaging without backtracking.”

Van Nort also recommended that bakeries establish dedicated teams, such as a mixing group on the raw side of production and a post-bake packaging team.

For maintenance personnel or those who need to move back and forth from one zone to another, he suggested changing their hairnets, smock or other personal protective equipment (PPE) when moving from one zone to another. Mandatory handwashing and shoe cleaning systems are also good standard operating procedures for sanitation.

He added that some bakeries create color-coded floors to regulate traffic in different areas of production. Bakeries, for instance, may use red for the raw product zone and blue for finished products. Color-coded tools are recommended for maintenance and sanitation teams working throughout the facility.

Likewise, incoming ingredients should be delivered in separate areas from packaging materials. If that’s not possible, driving forklifts and other movement between the specific assigned areas should be limited and controlled.

“You don't want to be driving raw materials through your packaging room to get to your mixer area,” Van Nort said. “You need a specific flow pattern in each facility.”

Butler mentioned that color-coded PPE and uniforms can also reinforce compliance and make deviations more visible. Sanitation programs should be supported by verification activities such as adenosine triphosphate testing or environmental monitoring, particularly for pathogens like listeria and salmonella.

“Clear standard operating procedures, consistent training and active supervision are essential to ensure expectations are understood and followed,” she said. “Even in older facilities, these practices help protect RTE products from cross-contamination risks.”

When bakeries use allergens, cross-contamination must be avoided at all costs.

“If a product contains allergens such as cookie with nuts, physical segregation of the area is preferred with walls as well as separate air handling that will prevent the allergen from being dispersed to the no-allergenic side,” Coronel said. “If that is not possible, efforts must be made to use air to segregate the products and prevent dust from moving to the allergy-free area.” 

He stressed that one area that cannot be overlooked involves the cooling of baked products, which need clean air flow to prevent cross-contamination with allergens.

“This area must be considered critical, as any contamination with mold, allergens or foreign matter will be passed to the consumer,” Coronel said.

This article is an excerpt from the July 2026 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Food Safety & Sanitation, click here.