Processors earmark money for floor maintenance
Produce processors will agree that one of the most difficult aspects of any operation is keeping floors clean, which is why they earmark plenty of money to their maintenance, upgrades and sanitation treatments.
Dave McNeece, managing director for Flowcrete Americas, Spring, Texas, notes the floor plays a crucial role in addressing contamination risks in any produce processing facility, as an inadequate floor can become a prime site of bacteria build-up.
“Not only does the floor have to provide a hygienic surface, it needs to do so in the face of corrosive chemicals, moisture, impacts and thermal shock,” he said. “If it cannot withstand these conditions then the floor can quickly fail, leading to germs and pathogens infiltrating hard to clean cracks.”
An exposed concrete slab therefore needs to be covered with a high performance flooring system where consumable food and beverage products are produced, processed, packaged or stored.
The Challenge
The floor of a food processing facility can be subject to a wide variety of food by-products, including fats, hot oils, blood, sugar solutions and natural food acids. Many of these substances can cause untold damage to an uncoated concrete floor due to their corrosive nature.
McNeece said that these substances can infiltrate the concrete material resulting in microbial growth and the spread of bacteria, which will in turn degrade not only the production environment but in some instances may contaminate the products themselves.
“On top of this, punishing cleaning and maintenance processes including steam cleaning, power washing, hot water washdowns and the use of aggressive cleaning agents can place a significant amount of stress on the floor,” he said. “Steam cleaning and hot water washdowns are also likely to put undue stress on the concrete slab, whereas power washing will begin to eat away at the surface and expose the concrete’s weakness. The use of aggressive cleaning chemicals corrodes the unprotected concrete, leaving it ripe for bacterial penetration as it becomes more and more porous.”
Options Abound
Richard Mallett, a director at HACCP, notes that the installation of HACCP International certified materials is a key way to ensure a clean, regulatory compliant floor, pointing out that HACCP guidelines state that a seamless and impervious finish must be maintained at all times, even when subjected to a large-scale processing facility’s intense working environment. Additionally, to meet the HACCP International standard, floors need to allow for adequate drainage and cleaning.
HACCP International operates a product certification scheme within which they evaluate materials intended for the food industry to identify food safety hazards and appropriate controls in order to reduce the risk of food contamination from those materials. This is now a key requirement of any due diligence process including the approved procurement of materials.
The importance of installing building materials that minimize contamination and the consequent risk of foodborne illnesses was highlighted in the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Annual Report of Incidents 2015. In the report, 1,645 contamination incidents were investigated and microbiological contamination accounted for nearly a quarter of them.
That’s why seamless resin-based surfaces are increasingly being specified in produce processing environments on account of the material’s hygienic profile and hardwearing performance characteristics.
“The robust polyurethane flooring range Flowfresh has been specifically formulated to provide a surface that will comply with strict food industry regulations for an extended period of time despite the sector’s inherently challenging conditions,” McNeece said. “The silver-ion based bactericidal additive Polygiene is homogenously distributed throughout the Flowfresh finish to complement regular floor cleaning and hygiene practices between the site’s scheduled wash cycles.”
Flowfresh has been proven to meet the ISO 22196 standard, which measures a surface’s antibacterial effectiveness on plastics and other non-porous surfaces. The polyurethane system underwent rigorous testing to show that it complied with this internationally recognized benchmark.
Tile flooring is an excellent surface for produce processing plants, although eventually grouting can start to wear out and they will allow water penetration beneath the floor. Floors should also be sloped toward drains and provided with curbed wall floor junctions, with the curbs having a 30-degree slope to prevent accumulation of water, dust or soil.
Role of the Employees
A key part of keeping floors at their finest is having employees properly trained in the ways to clean both cleaning equipment and floors.
According to the FDA’s Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards of Fresh-cut Fruits and Vegetables, employees at a processing plant should always avoid use of high-pressure water hoses to clean floors, walls, and equipment in the processing and packaging areas during production or after production equipment has been cleaned. By doing so, it will help prevent aerosols from contacting processing equipment and food-contact surfaces, product, or packaging materials.
Time and Cost
There are numerous variables involved in assessing the cost and time of a project, including the thickness and formulation of the specific system applied as well the amount of work that would be required to bring the substrate up to the necessary standard to apply a resin finish. Most of these factors can only be accurately determined following a site visit.
McNeece said that typically, a heavy-duty polyurethane system should take only 1 to 2 days in a warm environment to reach a full chemical cure, however it can take much longer (around 5 to 7 days) in a colder location.
“Fast cure resin systems are available for facilities that want to install a floor as quickly as possible,” he said. “Methyl methacrylate (MMA) enhanced floors are able to achieve a full chemical cure within only a few hours and are much less sensitive to temperature compared to other resin systems.”
Looking Ahead
In mid-2016, a new regulation, the FSMA FDA Preventive Controls for Human Foods (21 CFR 117), is coming into force, which will apply to facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold human food as defined in 21 CFR 117 and is focused on preventing foodborne illnesses, largely through critical programs that prevent food safety events rather than reacting to problems when they occur.
“Preventive controls include Critical Control Points as well as prerequisite programs (PRPs) that address hazards control,” McNeece says. “This new regulation also makes it all the more important to utilize HACCP International certified materials.”
— Keith Loria, contributing writer
