Designing a food industry, what should you consider?

Designing a food industry, what should you consider?

Quality Managers Courses in Food Quality and Safety »Blog» Design of food industry club, what should you consider?

Designing a food industry, what should you consider? – Quality Managers Club Courses in Food Quality and Safety
What should be considered in the design?

The food industry is mainly characterized by the peculiarity of conditions imposed by the biological nature of its raw materials and the fate of their finished products. Do not forget that foods are to be consumed

It is therefore necessary that the food industry is designed in a few specific requirements, food safety requirements. It is not an exaggeration, it has happened to me on more than one occasion.

Agricultural engineering as I am, I have seen many of the engineers who project a food industry does not have much knowledge in food safety. And it is not the same factory screws yogurt.

implicit requirements in the food industry

It is industry, with the exception of the pharmaceutical, which is subject to more controls and standards by public and private organizations, customers. Consequently, the priority objectives of this industry are to ensure a hygienic food processing and preservation over time, synchronized with the character generally perishable food.

Of course, it is an industrial company, with its corresponding economic role, consisting of adding value to the raw material and create and maintain jobs, ie profit.

It is therefore both requirements must be taken into account for its design.

The food industry must face:

fluctuations nature of raw materials
restrictions “living” nature of the raw materials and products
the specific conditions of marketing of products
the increasing complexity of technological processes
hygienic and sanitary conditions
The problem of designing a food industry is therefore much more complex than other industries due to differential components that have food against other product.

The design of the food industry has a fundamental role, which should take into account basic principles of design, plan an efficient flow of materials and people, a logical distribution of facilities and efficient operation of the process.

For each product is planned to manufacture, and following the flowchart, process analysis and must specify for each stage of production, among other things, the characteristics of each unit operation and the critical points for control is performed in each of these unit operations and their level of sensitivity.

According to the sensitivity of the product (critical points in the process), areas with contamination risks are defined, ie must define sensitivity levels for each zone. And considering these risks, designing facilities to minimize them.

Environmental conditions

For example, one of the factors to take into account for the design of agri-food facilities, is the condition of the environment. The airflow is vital to be taken into account. It is not the same for low-risk to high-risk. And in the air we have the ability to contain lots of germs that can be transferred to food.

There is no specific legislation in the European Union that we determine the amount of germs that may be present in an environment, but there ISO or FDA standards we can provide guidance, and it is this.

In risk areas where the product is open:

> 3500-3500000 particles of 0.5 m per m3 (amount of dust)
> 350 germs per m3
In high-risk areas (according to the definition IFS)

> 3500 particles per m3 0.5m
less than 0.35 m3 germs
To move forward coherently towards managing the microbiological quality in food industry should be:

define an environment, ie infrastructure to limit any entry and spread of microorganisms in the factory.
manage flows in this infrastructure to control all entry, spread and multiplication of microorganisms.