Kenosan Lactic remains approved: these are the officially validated alternatives for knife disinfection

What is Kenosan Lactic?

Kenosan Lactic is a powerful cleaning and disinfection product. Its main active ingredient is lactic acid. Using lactic acid as the main component is safe for disinfecting surfaces that come into contact with food, without requiring a rinse afterwards.

Within the meat sector, Kenosan Lactic is a well-established disinfectant. It was specifically developed and approved for disinfecting knives on the slaughter line and when cutting meat, and it is still produced and approved for this purpose.

Why are companies still looking for an alternative to hot water?

Legislation requires slaughterhouses and cutting plants to have facilities for disinfecting tools with hot water of at least 82°C, or another system with an equivalent effect. Hot water at this temperature has a number of drawbacks, including high energy consumption. Hence the sector's interest in alternative disinfection methods such as Proculac and Inspexx 210. To use such an alternative, approval from the FASFC is required, and it must be demonstrated that the method is at least as effective as hot water.

Proculac® officially validated (Advice 02-2026)

On 27 March 2026, the Scientific Committee of the FASFC approved Advice 02-2026 on Proculac®, developed by Arauchemia. Proculac is a ready-to-use (RTU) lactic acid-based cleaning and disinfection product, registered at EU level (EU-0031834-0000). The conclusion of the advice: at ambient temperatures between 4 and 25°C, a 2-second disinfection with Proculac® shows equivalent effectiveness compared to the reference method of hot water at least 82°C for 2 seconds.

Please note: this validation is limited in scope. It applies only to pig slaughterhouses, cattle slaughterhouses, and cutting plants for pork and beef, and only to manual immersion or overflow systems for knives and circular knives (such as wizards). Other cutting tools, such as saws or tools with moving parts, fall outside this validation due to a lack of sufficient data. The Scientific Committee was also unable to draw a conclusion for contact times longer than 2 seconds.

Inspexx 210 also assessed (Advice 01-2026)

Inspexx 210 from Ecolab also received an official advisory, with dossier number Advice 01-2026. The Scientific Committee concluded that, at an ambient temperature of 2 to 25°C, using 0.16% Inspexx 210 with a contact time of at least 15 seconds performs equivalent to or better than a short disinfection (≤2 seconds) with hot water of at least 82°C. If your company uses longer contact times for hot water disinfection in practice, the Scientific Committee advises against using Inspexx 210, as equivalence has not been demonstrated in that case. Here too, the validation is limited to pig and cattle slaughterhouses and cutting plants, and to manual immersion of knives and circular knives.

Other options: Octodes FP and rinse-required disinfectants

Octodes FP, developed by Ecolab, is a powerful liquid disinfectant based on mixed peracids for use on all hard surfaces in the food and beverage industry, with a low dosage of 0.5% and a contact time of 5 minutes, without rinsing. There are also rinse-required disinfectants, based on chlorine, quaternary ammonium compounds, amines or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2): powerful against bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms, but only to be used with a thorough rinse afterwards.

Recommendations from the Scientific Committee

For Proculac and Inspexx 210, the Scientific Committee provides additional recommendations to increase effectiveness: clean the tools thoroughly before disinfection, use longer contact times where possible, and work with alternating knives. The Committee acknowledges that some recommendations may be more difficult to implement in practice, for example on fast-moving slaughter lines where a task sometimes has to be carried out for up to 300 animals per hour. From a food safety perspective, however, it remains important for the sector to follow these recommendations as much as possible.

What does this mean for your business?

Considering switching to Proculac® or Inspexx 210 as an alternative disinfection method, or staying with Kenosan Lactic? Check whether your application falls within the validated scope (type of tool, type of facility, temperature and contact time), and build this correctly into your self-monitoring system, including verification tests and your own process hygiene criteria.

Want to know more?

Not sure about the impact of these advisories on your self-monitoring system, or would you like your disinfection procedure reviewed? Our Normanists are happy to help. Get in touch.

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