For the Eagle team, protecting your food and the food industry means improving disposable glove compliance standards. FDA food compliance tests for chemical migration only, meaning gloves are not tested for microbial contamination or for holes and defects.
We believe this could expose food companies and the public to unnecessary risk, that’s why we’ve submitted an issue to the 2025 Conference for Food Protection urging a review of current glove compliance regulations. Our submission highlights recent research revealing pathogens like Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridioides difficile found on new and unused gloves—underscoring the urgent need for a review and change of current compliance standards.
With growing concerns around microbial contamination and the need for testing food-contact surfaces (including gloves), we believe it's time to update glove regulatory compliance —standards to reflect the real glove risks. Our goal is simple: ensure the gloves trusted to protect food actually meet the standards our industry and consumers deserve.
Conference for Food Protection 2025 Submission
Food Safety And Public Health Risks Of Disposable Glove Contamination
Issue to consider:
Glove contamination risks, due to lax manufacturing and import regulations, are a food safety and public health risk.
The FDA Title 21 Part 110 - Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP 21 CFR 110.10) states gloves must be in an “intact, clean, and sanitary condition” and made from “impermeable” material.
However, current FDA (21 CFR 177) compliance for food handling only includes chemical migration testing, it does not test for microbial contamination (bioburden) nor performance or defects – in other words FDA compliance does not regulate gloves to be intact, clean, sanitary or impermeable.
The ease of importing fraudulent, used and repackaged, reject quality gloves was highlighted during the Pandemic. Because of the lack of manufacturing, regulatory and import requirements, this continues to be both a food safety and public health risk.
Public Health Significance: Microbial Contamination of Disposable Gloves
A recently peer reviewed article in the Journal of Food Protection “Potential for Glove Risk Amplification via Direct Physical, Chemical, and Microbiological Contamination” highlights the significance of lax disposable glove regulatory oversight and the consequences of this to food safety and public health.
“Additional research is also needed to understand the hazards represented in the viable microorganisms that come to contaminate gloves during the production process. Here, we report enterotoxigenic strains of Bacillus cereus and B. anthracis, along with the presence of Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridoides difficile, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Streptococcus pneumoniae, isolated from unused, disposable gloves.”
With the higher profile listeriosis outbreaks in 2024, to further protect the public from L. Monocytogenes the FSIS is adding broader Listeria species testing to all samples of RTE product, environmental samples, and food contact surface samples (including gloves) effective January 2025.
FSIS Compliance Guideline: Controlling Listeria monocytogenes in Post-lethality Exposed Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Products
“For example, employees’ gloves should be identified as FCSs if employees directly handle the product with their gloves.”
Recommended Solutions:
Recommendations for food-handling gloves include:
- The review and inclusion of bioburden and structural integrity testing (strength, durability, pinhole defects) of food handling gloves, as well as specific toxic chemicals such as phthalates, BPA and PFAS.
- Increased due diligence of manufacturing certifications, including third-party QA verification.
- The review of glove importation regulations, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spot checks of structural integrity and microbial contamination.
Eagle Protect requests a committee be formed to review the current manufacturing regulations for FDA food-compliant gloves, to report back to the 2027 Conference for Food Protection with recommendations as highlighted in # 1, 2 and 3 above.
References:
FDA Title 21 Part 110 - Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP 21 CFR 110.10)
FDA (21 CFR 177) compliance for food handling
Potential for Glove Risk Amplification via Direct Physical, Chemical, and Microbiological Contamination
Controlling Listeria monocytogenes in Post-lethality Exposed Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Products
