For decades, food processors have been using foot baths (also called shoe baths and foot mats) as a method of reducing cross-contamination from footwear in their processing facilities. Typically, a foot bath is a large tub, trough or tray filled with some type of antimicrobial solution. The worker walks through the solution and saturates the soles of their footwear, thus reducing the number of potentially danger pathogens that may be there. However, foot baths have many inherent problems.

Diminished Effectiveness: From the very first use, the antimicrobial solution’s effectiveness is diminished. The more workers that walk through the solution, the less effective it becomes. The only remedy is to dump out the old solution and add a fresh batch.

Requires Frequent Monitoring and Maintenance: To maintain the foot bath’s effectiveness, frequent monitoring and maintenance is required so that the solution doesn’t become ineffective. This is labor intensive and costly.

Inconsistent Results: With the footbath’s solution continuously diminishing, you cannot ensure consistent, repeatable results.

Can Be Avoided by Workers: Footbaths can be stepped over, walked around, and generally avoided by workers.

Visually Unattractive: Foot baths are messy and visually unattractive. This can send the wrong message to customers and guests.