Hygiene begins with floor-care, especially in the food segment, as everything that spills, falls down on the floor or the nearest surface… everything that is not required is thrown down or lands on the floor… While this is true of any kitchen or food serving/servicing area, it can equally be messy with food processing shopfloors unless good practices are adhered to.
Various technologies and solutions are at the disposal of the food processing and food handling segments where floor maintenance is concerned. In a discussion with a few of the top food processing units, many challenges other than floor care came to the fore.
Challenges in Dairy
Floor cleaning is taken care by vacuums and scrubbers at dairy units. However, cleaning the interior surface of pipelines, vessels, filters, process equipment and associated things without dismantling remains a huge challenge. Rajendra Gupta, Production Manager- The Surat District Co-operative Milk Union Ltd comments, “We are having 150KL milk silos as high as a twostorey buildings. While the side walls restrict air inflow potential, chimney/ stack affect the natural ventilation, we face challenges while cleaning the inner surfaces of these silos and presently, we are able to clean only 50% of the entire surface.” The efficiency of cleaning these surfaces are mostly influenced by factors like character of contamination, micro topography of surfaces, straightness of passage ways, speed of application and related speed of penetration.
“We are using stochastic model with spray balls at the roof and have deployed suitable chemicals with auto-dosing systems.”
Challenges in Tea Processing
While the floors at a tea processing unit is taken care by vacuums and scrubbers, the issues are varied but arising from a single factor – dust. Tea processors, who have been visiting Clean India Shows too, are looking for upgraded solutions to curb dust in the processing and packaging areas.
Floating dust to settled dust in the packaging area not only poses a health hazard but also gets challenging in retaining the quality of packaging. Dust extraction and dust collection are suggested solution but it has to probably be customised from case to case. Umesh Khachar, GM Factory Operations-Gujarat Tea Processors & Packers Ltd (Wagh Bakri Group), says, “We are having scrubber machines, vacuum machines and other necessary equipment & tools to maintain the entire plant. At the shopfloor hardly any chemicals are used, however our major concern remains dust collection and filtration during packaging process.”
Challenges in flour mills
Flour mills, the most perishable and high risk ingredient in food processing, can get contaminated leading to infestation and thereby rejection of the consignment. Utmost care is taken right from the receiving of the raw material to the packaging. Dust levels are equally high in such units and requires constant floor cleaning. A famous flour mill from the South shared the biggest challenge of reaching right to the bottom of the mill and cleaning to standards.
“We faced a big problem of probably some residue of the previous batch that may have settled at the bottom of the mill, leading to food pest which were not noticed until infestation levels. We required machines with facilities to reach right to the bottom for cleaning, said a mill manager.”
In the forthcoming issue of Clean India Journal, we will address the various solutions for cleaning in food industry including various floorcare solutions.
Dry Ice Blast Cleaning
Dry ice blasting is much like pressure washing, or sandblasting, since there is a media being moved at high speed, under pressure, to clean a specific target surface. But this is where the similarities end. Dry ice is dry, so there is no danger of short circuiting electrical equipment or rusting bearings. It is non-conductive, so it can even be used on energized circuits. It is non-abrasive, so it will not damage most surfaces. Think of dry ice blasting as being like a spatula, lifting the contaminant from the surface, rather than an ice pick, chiseling away from the top down. And the best part is that it disappears, leaving absolutely no residues or secondary waste stream. Dry ice is a “food grade” product, meaning it can be used in food manufacturing, food preparation facilities and is FDA approved. There is no grit entrapment to cause damage to your expensive machinery or hazards associated with dust migration.
Because there is no secondary waste stream, dry ice blasting is ideal for in-plant maintenance and production cleaning. Equipment that once had to be disassembled, transported to a cleaning booth, either sand blasted or tediously hand cleaned, then transported back and reassembled and calibrated, can now be cleaned in place, with little or no disassembly, greatly reducing costly downtime. The only waste to clean up afterward is the grime, ink, mold release, oil, loose paint or whatever contaminant was removed. Likewise, in the restoration applications (mold, fire, etc.) total job time is greatly reduced due to the fact there is very little post-blast cleanup required.
There are several mechanical processes happening when dry ice particles strike a surface. Depending on the type of blasting system being used, air pressure and nozzle selected, the ice particles travel at speeds between 600 and 800 feet per second. Upon impact they sublimate into CO2 gas. There is an expansion factor of 8 X as this happens, so assuming the particles are able to initially penetrate the contaminant, this expansion occurs at the underlying substrate, thus lifting the contaminant off. There is also a thermal shock effect, as the particles are at subzero temperatures (-109.3oF). Many applications are able to clean faster because of this effect, most notably hot tooling, such as tire molds.
Food Industry Applicability
Used as a general cleaner, the cleaning system uses small rice size pellets of dry ice shooting them out of a jet nozzle with compressed air. The technology can be used for:
- Production equipment – ovens, bake trays, slicers, food moulds, fryers
- Packaging equipment – folders, gluers, palletizers, baggers
- Production environment – walls, floors, piping, exhaust fans
- Electrical components – motors, switches, panels, wiring
- Inaccessible or tightly spaced areas – bulbous welds, conveyor components, crevices, dead ends
Benefits of dry ice cleaning
- Waterless process: The dry ice soon gets vaporized during the blast cleaning process, leaving behind no residues. This cleaning procedure is ideal for industries that rely on dry cleaning methods such as bakeries.
- Non-corrosive: No abrasive cleaning agents are required, thus avoids damage to equipment surface integrity (ex: pitting, corrosion).
- Deep cleaning: Cleans various nooks and crannies that are difficult to reach using brushes or other traditional cleaning methods.
- Microorganism removal: Effective for the removal of Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria from stainless steel, ceramic tile and food grade plastic surfaces.
- Cost-effective: reduced labour and other sanitation associated costs (ex: chemicals, water savings).
“The food processing industry has been facing huge challenges while maintaining cleanliness and hygienic standards. Be it, surface care or shop-floor maintenance, there is always a risk of cross contamination with the traditional cleaning processes. As a result, the innovative dry ice blast cleaning is quickly gaining widespread acceptance as an alternative to conventional cleaning methods owing to the its capability of rapidly removing stubborn deposits from both processing equipment and the pr
oduction environment.”
- Clean hot: Equipment surfaces are blast cleaned while still warm, which prevents prolonged shutdown times.
- On-site cleaning: Mobile blast cleaning machinery eliminates the need for target equipment to be moved to designate cleaning areas.
- Non-hazardous: The dry ice blast cleaning procedure requires no toxic cleaning chemicals, solvents, sanitizers or detergents.