Designing out the hazards

A hygienic design of equipment and plants plays a vital role in ensuring food and feed safety. As well as reducing contamination risks, it allows cleaning plants and equipment more quickly and easily, cutting downtime and boosting productivity. An optimum hygienic design ensures easy cleaning of all surfaces, materials and structural elements, and helps reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of equipment.

Our state-of-the-art cereals dryer Ceres also has design features such as a continuous belt-wash system and a direct-drive recirculation fan that eliminate belts, shafts, bearings and guards for clean installation. Our enrobing, decorating and cooling machines for cookies, biscuits and bars are also designed to the highest standards, with a focus on full drain ability and avoidance of hollow spaces and crevices. We also provide expert advice on best practice guidelines to organizations including the EHEDG and the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), which we implement in our new designs.

Our broad range of hygienic design solutions includes the Sortex F optical sorter for frozen fruits and vegetables, which has been designed with simplicity in mind and to meet European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG) guidelines. It enables efficient wet cleaning to reduce the risk of microbial contamination and eliminates product build-up. The chocolate molding solution ChocoBotic, meanwhile, is free of chains and their lubricants and has far fewer stations and components.