Hi Rob, the team has provided the following response to your question.

Iodine-based products are OK but some businesses have moved away from using these in favour of other chemicals.

There are a few things to consider if using iodine-based products; they require quite a long contact time to be effective – nearly 2 minutes in a footbath and no one is standing there that long! Iodine footbaths can also degrade quickly due to organic material, sunlight and heat. And iodine creates staining issues.

The only product that has a label claim for Salmonella Enteritidis and Avian Influenza is Virkon – made by Alltech. Virkon is a favourite of farm managers as it changes colour when used in a foot bath and is no longer effective – goes from pink to white. And importantly for smaller businesses the product is widely available at produce stores and can be bought in smaller sachets – a 50g packets mixes up to 5 litres and is easy to store.

A generic version, called Viral FX is produced by Chemetall.

Alternatively, F10 is a strong disinfectant used widely in vet hospitals. F10 can be cost prohibitive for commercial poultry and has no label claims specifically for Salmonella Enteritidis but does have claims for Salmonella.

It’s important to remember that organic matter needs to be removed prior to the disinfection whether cleaning footwear or washing wheels. For gross decontamination have brushes or scrapers available.