What's Trending Thursday: OmniShield AMS Anti-Microbial Vinyl Gloves

Food safety is vital to keeping our society healthy, but new challenges in keeping our food supply free from contaminants emerge all the time. We've seen a number of widespread contamination issues occur in recent years, at popular restaurants and even in staple products like lettuce. Here's the facts about foodborne illness:

• 1 in 6 Americans yearly gets sick from eating contaminated foods.
• 48 million people yearly get sick from eating contaminated foods.
• Over 250 different foodborne diseases have been identified.

Contamination can happen at any point in the food production chain, but there are steps any industry or employee can take in helping to prevent it. One of the most important steps is safely handling food products, and that starts with sterile, disposable gloves. Omni International Corp's OmniShield disposable vinyl gloves with Anti-Microbial Solutions LLC (AMS) Technology are the gloves to choose.

What is AMS Technology?

Many anti-microbial products are bactericidal: they kill bacteria and fungi. This can have detrimental, long-term consequences as these organisms may develop a resistance to these products. One of the biggest challenges in food safety is antibiotic resistance stemming from overuse of antibiotics, for example. AMS Technology, rather than just killing bacteria, is also bacteriostatic: it prevents bacterial growth. This technology inhibits the growth of microorganisms via electrochemical action that disrupts their cell walls; this prevents the microorganism from functioning or reproducing. It also prevents fungi from reproducing via mitosis (cell division). OmniShield gloves don't just kill microorganisms, but destroy their potential to grow and spread.

How is AMS Technology incorporated?

Many gloves are treated with anti-microbial substances, but the problem with this is that these substances can be wiped off through use, removing the gloves' bactericidal properties. AMS Technology is incorporated into OmniShield's glove during the compounding stage, before the gloves are molded. All of the gloves' anti-microbial properties are found throughout the material, and retain their ability to kill bacteria and inhibit its growth for as long as the gloves can be worn.

What features do OmniShield gloves have?

OmniShield gloves are 100% synthetic vinyl, with no natural rubber latex, allowing for their use by those with latex allergies. They're designed with food service and production in mind.

Other features:

• Four standard sizes available.
• 100/box.
• Permeating, EPA approved, anti-microbial solution.
• Non-carcinogenic.
• Non-allergenic.
• DOP and DEHP free.
• California Proposition 65 compliant.
• Powder free.