In order to mitigate finished product contamination and system hygiene outages, it is desirable to establish and maintain control over the microbial content of raw materials along with other aspects of quality assurance and control. Manufacturers should evaluate the microbiological quality of their raw materials and establish appropriate, rational and actionable limits based on the best technical considerations and in context of finished product quality specifications. This guideline does not apply to foods, drugs or cosmetics. This criterion does not apply to those organisms within products whose user benefit is established via viable microbial populations (e.g. biological drain/trap cleaners).