Food Safety Culture – Color-Coding for the Color-Blind

Food production facilities often rely on color coding their tools and workstations to establish zones of control. These zones can help designate areas where allergens are used to prevent cross-contact incidents, separate raw from finished products to avoid cross-contamination issues, or visually represent different shifts to track potential direct-contamination trends. Color coding is generally simple to understand and provides a universal language for people of all literacy and language backgrounds.

However, for approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women, some colors may be challenging or even impossible to differentiate. Color blindness comes in various forms, but the most common type is partial color blindness, where individuals struggle to distinguish between a few colors. Among these, the two most frequent forms of red-green color blindness—deuteranopia (reduced sensitivity to red light) and protanopia (reduced sensitivity to green light)—are the most prevalent. While this doesn't mean color coding isn't effective for color-blind employees, it does suggest that colors should be selected carefully to avoid the most common color-blindness pairings.

 

Tips for Creating a Color-Blind Friendly Workplace

There are several ways to accommodate color-blind employees. Keep in mind that these ideas might not universally work for every single color-blind individual, so it's essential to involve any team members with limited color vision in your discussions:

1. Avoid Commonly Confused Pairings

   Certain color combinations are more likely to cause confusion than others. Warm and cool colors often pair better than cool colors alone. Exceptions exist, particularly for the most common forms of color blindness, such as green and red. Other frequently confused color pairings include:

   • Blue/Purple
   • Green/Blue
   • Blue/Gray
   • Green/Gray
   • Green/Black

   Shades that tend to work well together include blue and red, yellow and purple, and orange and reddish-purple. Refer to the chart below, taken from Martin Krzywinski's Science Art, for an easy 7-color palette that individuals with protanopia and deuteranopia (two forms of the most common red/green color blindness) can easily distinguish.

2. Use Different Shades

   Even colors that are typically confusing can be distinguished if their shades are sufficiently different. For instance, neon green and deep red or pastel blue and royal purple are unlikely to be mistaken for each other. To ensure clarity, take a picture of your tool color options using your smartphone and apply a filter to convert the image to black and white. If possible, test with actual tools or images from the supplier's website. In black and white, assess whether the shades between your chosen colors are distinct enough.

3. Create Tool Stations

   Tool stations provide employees with a straightforward way to locate the tools needed for a specific task. For example, if yellow tools are used for products containing wheat, setting up a shadow board exclusively for those tools ensures color-blind employees can be confident they're selecting the correct tool for the job, provided other team members regularly verify the tool station's organization.

4. Utilize Black for Floors and Drains

   While black and white offers the highest contrast, many color combinations work effectively for color-blind employees and also offer additional advantages, such as using red for raw meat, white for milk, or yellow for wheat. However, certain cleaning tools, like drain brushes, are best kept black or clearly labeled. Remco offers a line of drain cleaning tools that are labeled for easy differentiation, while some customers prefer to use black tools for heavy-duty cleaning. When harsh chemicals are involved and the tool cleans non-food-contact surfaces like the floor, it's best to select a tool that is clearly marked and easily identifiable.

Color-coding is a valuable asset in food processing environments, and taking steps to ensure its effectiveness for all employees is well worth the effort. By implementing a few safeguards, such as tool stations, and exercising caution when choosing colors, zoning with color-coding can enhance food safety and reduce cross-contact incidents, cross-contamination, and direct contamination, thereby preventing foodborne illnesses and potential outbreaks. To learn more about the benefits of color-coding and determine if it's suitable for your facility, consider reading Guidance on the Use of Color Coding to Improve Food Safety and Quality.