EFTCO, the European Federation of Tank Cleaning Organisations, is a non-profit association, which represents 510 tank cleaning depots in 22 European countries.
Tank cleaning is an essential part of the food supply chain. It is important that this service is carried out by professional and reliable partners. This is one of the main objectives of EFTCO and the purpose of the European Cleaning Document (ECD). The ECD is owned by EFTCO and used by the cleaning companies to record in a multi-lingual format the services completed. The ECD has unique numbering to provide traceable provenance by EFTCO’s Members of any legitimate ECD. The EFTCO cleaning codes have been translated to all the languages of the national associations.
The ECD has become a document that is commonly accepted as proof that the tank cleaning was carried out as the customer requested, at a high-quality level and in compliance with all legal, safety and environmental requirements.
Initially used by the chemical industry, EFTCO and members saw that there was an increasing demand from the food industry also to use the ECD and to implement a quality assessment system.
Food related codes used with the ECD provide the documentation of food cleaning and the preparation of tank transport equipment for loading food.
EFTCO Codes for Food
| F | Foodstuffs |
| F01 | Cleaning with potable water only |
| F50 | Food approved detergent |
| F51 | Food approved sanitising agent |
| F60 | Turbidity measurement |
| F61 | Conductivity measurement |
| F62 | ATP measurement |
| F63 | pH-value measurement |
| F64 | Membrane filter test |
| F65 | Allergen test |
| F85 | Sanitising with hydrogen peroxide |
| F86 | Sanitising with peracetic acid |
The quality demands of the loading industry and its related associations have steadily grown concerning food safety and food hygiene. In response to this demand, EFTCO launched its audit process – EFTCO Food Assessment – in 2013, which was the result of an international workgroup within EFTCO. The aim was to integrate all the relevant European legal, technical regulations and guidelines into the questionnaire as much as possible, so as to achieve a practical solution, in which the interests of all parties – the loading industry, the transport companies and the tank cleaning stations – are taken into consideration.
The EFTCO Food Assessment should be seen as a food specific supplementary part of the SQAS tank cleaning assessment.
In 2015 EFTCO improved its food assessment system to meet the recent demands of the food industry and tank cleaning stations. The 2015 questionnaire is improved and valuable feedback received from the industry since launching the first questionnaire in 2013 has been taken into consideration.
Tank cleaning companies can request an Assessment and select EFTCO trained and approved assessors to schedule an assessment date.
The audit results will become available for all registered and authorised partners on EFTCO’s internet platform for individual quality rating. The quality rating of the audit results are subject to the individual/specific standards of the food industry and can only be executed by the industry and/or their logistic partners.
All food cleaning stations carrying out this assessment across Europe are authorised to use the EFTCO Food logo.
