Key points
Hygiene standards evolve and this can be one of the challenges when ensuring that factory design and layout follow best practice.
Since July, British Retail Consortium (BRC) Global Standards has been basing its audits for food safety compliance on issue 7 of the standard rather than issue 6. A key component of the update is a focus on the new classification of ‘ambient high-care’ areas in the factory.
John Holah, technical director of hygiene technology company Holchem and executive committee member in the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG), says this is changing the way that parts of factories processing ambient foods are designed.
He explains: “In the past, hygiene controls were largely based on the ability of a pathogen to grow in food prior to consumption. Now, with products such as peanuts or chocolate, we’ve gone from stopping the growth of a pathogen to preventing the survival of something like salmonella.” As a part of this new approach, processes which ran as low-risk are being rehoused in high-hygiene areas of the factory.
But design anomalies cannot always be blamed on someone moving the goalposts. Even in new-build plants, hygiene considerations may not have been given the attention they deserve (and require) at the design stage.
At Lorien Engineering Solutions, senior project manager Phil Colquhoun offers some insights into the decision-making process. “The real cost of design-for-hygiene may be seen by the initial client design team as unnecessary expenditure.”
Of course, investing in hygiene should be “common sense”. He states: “But it takes a bold designer to fight an already cash-strapped capex project in order to add yet another drain.”
This could indicate somewhat out-of-date perceptions regarding the significance of food contamination for a brand or supplier.
The EHEDG’s Holah identifies five aspects to microbiological control, which include: barriers that prevent pathogens getting into the production area; infrastructure which does not allow their growth; production systems which limit cross-contamination; effective cleaning and disinfection; and systems to monitor and verify all these controls.
Battle lines (Return to top)
The first two of these battle lines relate to factory design, while the third and fourth are to do with systems and individual actions. “A few years ago, any outbreak would have been blamed on hygiene practices,” says Holah. “Today, it’s more likely to be attributed to poor design which allowed the pathogens into the factory.”
So which design oversights are the most common, and why do they arise? Problems can be as fundamental as (suitably enough) the quality and stability of the foundations. “You may get the ‘shake, rattle and roll’ effect,” says Holah. “If there is any movement, this can loosen internal finishes and lead to cracks in the floor or wall.”
At Chalcroft Construction, md Mark Reeves highlights poor detailing as one of the pitfalls in new factories. “When you’re joining a white wall to a resin floor, there are specific ways of doing that to avoid problems,” he says. “Otherwise, water and bugs can get in there.”
A similar lack of ‘joined-up thinking’ can be a challenge when it comes to floors and drainage. “You can have drains ‘fitted’ into floors, which aren’t actually fitted at all,” says Holah. “This can create channels which may harbour pathogens such as listeria. But if you can get the contractors responsible for the flooring and for the drains to work together, you can end up with a crevice-free structure.”
Flooring supplier BASF and ACO Building Drainage are among those actively promoting this type of collaborative approach, he reports.
When it comes to the reasons behind these hygiene shortcomings, the composition of the project management team will top the list.
Low priority (Return to top)
Reeves at Chalcroft says that, in his experience, the client’s production team will often lead the design. This can mean that drainage and other infrastructure requirements are given lower priority than, say, output and efficiency. “The professionals managing the project might not pick up on the shortcomings of a production-led approach,” he adds.
Budget constraints can also undercut hygiene optimisation. “A lot of clients take a short-term return-on-investment view,” says Reeves. “Looking longer-term is more difficult.”
Chalcroft project manager Ed Getley adds: “A lot of details get cut out because there is perceived to be no immediate need for them.”
Overall, there is a tendency for design requirements to change at different stages in the planning and even the construction process. “You’d be surprised how often this happens.”
At Lorien, Colquhoun goes even further: “The ‘user requirement specification’ for a new build will almost definitely change during the project design lifecycle.” This type of change, usually linked to tighter budgets, rarely works in favour of improved hygiene.
He has this advice on planning strategy: “Ideally, the building should be designed ‘inside out’. What is the process? What does the equipment layout look like? Where are the waste streams? Where are the main people routes?”
A thorough understanding of the process and its infrastructure requirements should be the designers’ starting point. “But all too often, the building is designed in principle first, with the answers to these questions coming too late in the project programme,” says Colquhoun.
As the name suggests, the Hygiene group knows all about factory cleaning requirements. The company specialises in providing cleaning services to the food industry, with a client list which includes Walkers, Mondelz and Haribo.
Md Steve Bailey emphasises that a modern factory infrastructure will typically allow fast and efficient cleaning in what is often a 24-hour production environment. This means adequate access to water (including hot water), power, air take-off points, light and drainage. “In some cases, though, the production area may be built to a very high standard, but with insufficient service points built into the design,” he says. “We’ve seen examples of new plants with inadequate drainage, for instance.” In other cases, details such as the drop in the floor have not been thought through, and are enough to make the cleaning process much less efficient.
Greatest frustration (Return to top)
Bob Cannell, Hygiene group business development manager, adds: “One of the greatest frustrations is where you have multi-level production with a wet-room only on one floor. Everything requiring cleaning needs to be taken to that room.” In some cases, clients can be persuaded to retrofit better infrastructure, says Bailey. But the real challenges come where an existing factory is being adapted for food.
Holah says: “With a five or 10 year-old factory, you may have the wrong drainage system, or problems with the flow of product, so it is not a straight-line process.”
Hygiene requirements explain much of the cost incurred in turning non-food premises into a best-practice food production environment.
“We’re currently working on a 25-year-old unit, where we’ve dug out around three-quarters of the floor, partly for drainage and partly to reinforce the foundations,” remarks Reeves.
Challenges (Return to top)
Ironically, some of the hygiene challenges in modern factories arise from the use of ‘better’, harsher chemicals in the cleaning process. At wall finish supplier Versaflex, marketing director Doug Commette explains: “These take a much harder toll on the paints, epoxies, fibreglass and metals.” Unsurprisingly, he maintains that his own company’s polyurea finish stands up to these harsher chemicals much better.
Equipment poses its own cleaning challenges. Those same harsh chemicals may be an integral part of the cleaning procedure for one machine, but may corrode the metal on a very similar one, says Hygiene’s Bailey.
Regarding overall hygienic engineering standards for machinery, Holah says: “Individual pieces of equipment are fantastic. The difficulty comes when you join them together using internal teams or local contractors.”
He traces the potential problems here back to a lack of training opportunities, such as a lack of hygienic design courses for welders.
There is also little requirement in BRC and retailer audits for hygienic design, which should be given more attention, he adds.
Hygienic design of food and drink factories will be covered at Food Manufacture’s Food safety conference: ‘Safer food and drink from harvest to home,’ which takes place at The Lowry in Manchester on September 29. For more information visit the event website.