Sanitary Design of Equipment

With the ongoing implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), prevention is becoming a key buzzword across the processes and practices of the industry, and sanitation is no exception. With that in mind, we wanted to focus on a basic fundamental of sanitation management, that is, the design of equipment to facilitate cleaning.

To give an expert viewpoint to the topic, we asked two industry experts – Joe Stout, CEO and founder, Commercial Food Sanitation, and Ben Trustem, applications engineering manager, Arrowhead Systems – to weigh in on some common questions in sanitary design for equipment. Following are their answers:

Q. What exactly is sanitary design as it relates to equipment?

Stout: Sanitary design is so critical to food safety. The best way to describe it is: equipment and facilities easily accessible and cleanable to a high level of effectiveness and efficiency. Not only do you need to clean it, but you also need to access it for sampling and inspection. If you can’t see it, you can’t clean it or sample it.

Trustem: Two of the most important aspects of sanitary design of equipment are visibility and clean-ability. Equipment needs to be designed so as to allow visibility and allow the sanitation crew to easily clean it and verify its cleanliness. This means that the design allows visibility of the framework and product-contact surfaces during production without disassembly; then, when not in production, it can be easily disassembled for cleaning, inspection, and reassembly without excessive downtime.

Q. When purchasing new equipment or redesigning current equipment, what should a plant seek in sanitary design?

Stout: As a plant starts to think about a redesign, the most important thing is the linked engagement with quality, operations, sanitation, and procurement. The best sanitary design development processes I have seen were generated by cross-functional teams who all had skin in the game and a level of earned ownership. Sanitation must clean it, quality needs to monitor it, operations must run it, and procurement must buy it. To get the best design for food safety, productivity, quality, clean-ability, and price, all must agree on what is most important and work together strategically to get it.

Trustem: For ease of cleaning, always check the surface finish of the equipment, as this will play a major role in removal of solids and residues. Surfaces such as polished and bead-blasted stainless steel and extruded plastics, will generally be more cleanable. Also ask the equipment manufacturer about any certifications they have attained, such as that of the USDA, NSF, or BISSC. Although these certifications may not be required for many installations, the certification provides an assurance that the manufacturer conforms to specific standards. Attaining these certifications also provides the manufacturer with advanced sanitary-design education.

Also important is the ease of breakdown of equipment, particularly the ability to break it down without the use of tools. Anytime an operator has to use a tool, it is more difficult to do and takes additional time. Tool use also introduces more opportunity for contamination and cross contamination of equipment. Any components that are bolted on are less likely to be removed and properly sanitized.

Q. How does sanitary design relate to the new prevention provisions in FSMA?

Stout: The FSMA linkages between sanitary design and food safety are not well delineated. However, with regulatory access to review food safety records and environmental monitoring results, one could be certain that if problems are continually evident in a food plant or an industry, it will lead one to the root cause—which may be poorly designed equipment or facilities.

Trustem: FSMA hasn’t completely translated to a significant increase in sanitary-designed equipment being purchased, in part, because much of the processor’s time and effort toward compliance is being focused on documentation and traceability. While this is important, it is not getting to the root of the problem—which is contamination. I do see this, though, as eventually coming full circle once companies start recognizing the true risks and indirect costs associated with equipment which is not designed with sanitation in mind.

Q. What else do processors need to know?

Stout: A signature, even by the President of the United States, does not cause an industry to change quickly. Most companies are working on documentation and their food safety plans, which are core to meeting the expectations of FSMA. Although documentation is important, it is also critical to focus on changing the culture in plants and companies to engage the hearts and minds of all employees. All of the documents on HACCP, sanitation, allergens, pest control or environmental monitoring will be worthless unless employees are engaged and passionate about their job requirements to make safe food. Without the right culture, FSMA will be a paperwork exercise that will increase regulatory actions against the industry without improving food safety statistics.

Trustem: An additional benefit of sanitary design that companies don’t always realize is its contribution to a reduction in changeover time and the associated cost benefits of that. If you have to dedicate what could be a full production shift to cleaning and sanitation rather than producing food, it carries a tremendous expense. Some of the savings of sanitary design gets clouded by the upfront cost of the equipment, but over time, the hours that are saved in proper cleaning and sanitization will add up quickly to more than make up for the initial cost difference.

The author is Editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@gie.net.