Worked Example — Cold Chain
Scoping Sanitation at a Horsley Drive Cold Store
This is a worked example rather than a report on a named client. It covers a chilled and frozen food distribution facility of about 5,500 square metres on The Horsley Drive in Horsley Park NSW 2175 — three temperature zones, a dispatch dock, a small production and repack room and amenities for around 60 staff across two shifts. What follows is how we scope sanitation on a site like this and what documentation it produces. No audit or client outcome is claimed.
Three findings, one root cause
Incomplete cleaning records, residue and condensate build-up around the chiller door thresholds, and no documented chemical register for the repack room look like three unrelated problems. They are not. They are what happens when a site is serviced by a general commercial cleaner engaged years earlier for an office and amenities scope, and cold-chain areas get added over time without anyone rewriting the schedule or the paperwork to match.
Thresholds are the clearest symptom. Every door cycle between a chilled zone and the dispatch dock drops condensate onto the floor, and traffic then works it into a film that no amount of general mopping removes. Nobody had ever specified a treatment for it, so nobody did one.
How we rebuild it
- The entire schedule written by zone and risk rather than by room, mapping every task to the area it protects
- A one-off deep clean and threshold remediation ahead of the ongoing contract, fixed-quoted as a project
- A daily threshold routine at each chiller and freezer door — squeegee, low-residue clean, dry pass
- Scheduled cold zone cleaning around defrost windows with cold-work PPE and 20 minute rotation limits
- A chemical register with safety data sheets held on site and dilution charts posted at the station
- Signed and dated task logs at completion, with photo evidence for every periodic task
- Drain and channel treatment in the repack room on a documented monthly cycle
Why the records mattered as much as the cleaning
Facilities in this position are often cleaning adequately in several of the flagged areas. They cannot prove it. In cold chain and food distribution the cleaning record is part of the product record, and an auditor who cannot see a dated log has to assume the task did not happen. Rebuilding the documentation is therefore half the project, and it is maintained continuously rather than assembled in a panic. The same discipline is applied on our factory cleaning and distribution centre cleaning programs.
What the operator gets in writing
A zoned, risk-mapped schedule; a documented daily threshold routine at every chiller and freezer door; a chemical register with safety data sheets and dilution charts posted at the station; signed and dated task logs with photo evidence for periodic works; and cold-work PPE and rotation limits recorded against the roster. Cleaners are police-checked, directly employed and site-inducted, with $20 million public liability cover and the certificate of currency supplied on request. We do not claim an audit outcome — the auditor decides that. The program prices into our compliance tier as described on the rates page, with worked examples on the cost guide. Related work is documented in our M7 corridor distribution centre worked example, and the heavier plant scopes on our industrial cleaning page.
Questions about this scope
What sort of facility does this cover?
A chilled and frozen food distribution facility of about 5,500 square metres on The Horsley Drive in Horsley Park 2175, with three temperature zones, a dispatch dock, a small production and repack room, and amenities for around 60 staff across two shifts.
What usually triggers a rebuild?
An unannounced customer audit returning findings such as incomplete cleaning records, condensate and residue build-up at the chiller door thresholds, or no documented chemical register for the repack room. Close-out windows on these audits are typically weeks, not months, which is what shapes the program below.
How do you clean a chilled area properly?
With low-residue product rated for the temperature, applied around defrost windows so surfaces are workable, and with crews issued cold-work PPE on a rotation limit. Cleaning a cold room in twenty minute blocks produces a better result than one long shift where nobody wants to be there.
How are the records handled?
The schedule is written by zone and risk, each task signed and dated at completion, periodic works photographed, and the chemical register with safety data sheets set up on site. The pack is assembled continuously rather than reconstructed before an audit.
Does this guarantee an audit result?
No, and we will not say otherwise — closing a finding is the auditor decision. What we supply is the cleaning and the evidence of it: a zoned schedule, a documented threshold routine, dated signed logs and photographed periodic works, held on site and current rather than assembled retrospectively.
How is the program priced?
Into our compliance tier, with any deep clean and threshold remediation fixed-quoted as a one-off project ahead of the ongoing contract. A cold-chain scope costs materially more than a general cleaning arrangement that never covered the cold areas — we quote both so the difference is visible before you decide.
Audit coming up at your Horsley Park facility?
Request a Free Quote