by John Rigarlsford
JohnsonDiversey
from SOFHT Focus, Issue 38, 2003
The consumer's demand for cheap food and beverages puts considerable pressure on the industry to improve efficiency and reduce production costs. Ideally, a food or beverage factory would like continuous production; with the factory working twenty four hours a day in order to get as much product out of the door as possible at minimum cost.
Although continuous production cannot be achieved, the factory management strive to make production as efficient as possible. However, the consumer wants safe food and the retailers want increasing shelf lives. These standards cannot be accomplished unless the factory hygiene is of the highest quality. Every food company must find time for cleaning and disinfection to maintain good hygienic production otherwise the microbial burden will increase.
Poor hygiene will reduce shelf life, lead to production spoilage, or, at worst result in a food poisoning outbreak. There have been many instances where a single food poisoning incident has reached the press and the publicity has reduced sales or even closed a factory. No factory can afford to take risks with hygiene and needs an effective sanitization programme, but at minimal cost both in terms of money and lost production time.
Most food and beverage factories set aside a definite cleaning window. In many factories, production usually starts around six o'clock in the morning and finishes at ten o'clock at night. However, even with such a cleaning window, production often overruns.
TACT
For effective cleaning, there has to be the right combination of chemical, thermal and mechanical energies and time available. If one of these factors is reduced, the effectiveness of the clean will be compromised unless one or more of the other factors is increased.
Therefore, if cleaning time is reduced, either the chemical concentration needs to be increased; the water temperature increased or more mechanical effort (usually more operatives) put into the job. This combination of factors is often referred to as the energy equation of cleaning. A simple way of remembering these factors is TACT:
Temperature
Agitation
Chemical Action
Time
If a food or beverage factory has reduced cleaning time, there will be a need to either increase the labour (i.e. number of cleaning operatives), increase the water temperature or use more effective cleaning products. Cleaning is not the most glamorous of jobs and in the current economic situation, where unemployment levels are low, factories often find it difficult to get good cleaners.
Also, increasing labour results in a significant rise in costs and is often not an option. It may not be desirable to increase the water temperature and usually, the only option left is to use more effective detergents. If at the same time, these detergents can be effective at ambient temperatures, have better cling even on vertical surfaces, clean quicker, and less water is used for rinsing, the factory is on to a winner.
Foam and Gel Cleaning
Most factories use foam cleaners for open plant cleaning. These can be relatively easily applied and, because of the foam, the operative can see where he has cleaned. However, even the best foams do not cling at all well to vertical surfaces, and require considerable amounts of water to rinse them away. Although the foam may give a reasonable clean, there is often a need to use a brush or "green pad" to remove particularly tenacious soils, such as biofilms or protein scale. This often means that the operative has to use buckets of additional detergent as well as the foam, resulting in unduly long cleaning times. In the last ten years, there has been the advent of gel cleaners, cleverly formulated to use the rheological properties of detergents. In the container, these gels are free flowing liquids, but when they are diluted to their in-use concentration (usually 4 to 8%) and applied through a pressure lance or gun, they gel on the surface. This gives a massive increase in contact time and better detergency.
Properly applied gels can remain on vertical surfaces for an hour or more which means it can be left on the surface whilst another area is cleaned. The gel is rinsed with relatively little water because the rheology changes to a free flowing liquid when the water hits it. However, gels need specialised application equipment, and are difficult to see, particularly on stainless steel surfaces, which means operatives tend to overuse them in order to produce a more visible covering. This raises chemical costs especially as the gels are sold at a significantly higher cost than foams.
Turning Cleaning into Profit
A new range of cleaning products has recently been introduced, which are neither foam nor gel, but combine the best features of both. These EnduroPower products can be applied through any foam equipment with minimal adjustment. Like gels, they are supplied as free flowing liquids but form a visco-elastic coating on the surface when diluted and applied. They are a lot easier to see than a gel and only need a single application. They cling to a surface up to six times longer than a foam, have excellent detergency and like gels, they are readily rinsed away.
There are three products in the range - a medium alkaline multipurpose cleaner (EnduroSuper); a medium alkaline chlorinated cleaner (EnduroChlor); and an acidic descaler cleaner (EnduroCid).
These have been trialled extensively in the USA and Europe in a variety of food and beverage factories.
Below are the results from, surfaces of one factory checked for cleanliness using ATP after cleaning with EnduroPower:
| SITE |
ATP
(Relative Light Units) |
| Pin bone exit container |
1.9 |
| S/S Table |
1.7 |
| Green Belt (Lower Trim) |
2.0 |
| Wall |
1.6 |
In this factory, the pass criterion was a reading of <2.5, and in every case, the surface was within the limit, indicating excellent cleaning.
Although more expensive than foams, EnduroPower products are very cost effective. Even stubborn fatty soils and tenacious protein scale were removed at ambient temperatures. The clean is significantly quicker than foams and therefore ideal when the cleaning window is reduced. They offer reduced cleaning times, and longer production times without compromising hygiene standards. Water usage is reduced and additional cleaning with brushes or green pads is minimal.
The products can be applied through standard foaming equipment and are ideal for the modern, environmentally aware factory that needs an excellent cleaning standard and improved production efficiency at minimum cost.
October 2003
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