Principles of Hygienic Design

A common goal

The safety and harmlessness of products has become a common goal of the food and pharmaceutical sector.

In the EU, there is a robust system for notifying, preparing for, and responding to potential food safety incidents. This system is coordinated at the EU level by the European Commission in close collaboration with national authorities and with the support of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority).

In Europe, there is also a powerful tool for food safety: RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed), which allows immediate reporting of any food alert that may endanger the health of humans or animals for its corresponding monitoring and containment measures.

What types of hazards exist?

RASFF publishes a report each year with statistics on the most common hazards that appear in product production. As can be seen, hazards of microbiological origin are the most frequent, accounting for almost 60% of cases.

As for the type of food, there is greater variety, although the ones that generate the most alerts are nuts.

What can facilitate contamination?

Contamination can occur mainly for the following reasons:

• Poorly sized process. It may happen that small changes are made in production that we believe do not affect the process (for example, a change of packaging), but that do end up influencing it.
• Raw materials and auxiliary products. Sometimes the problem may come from external materials.
• Human factor. It can occur due to direct or indirect contamination or due to processing errors.
• Insufficient cleaning and disinfection. It may be that the machinery has not been properly cleaned or that they have been applied inappropriately.
• Design. Problems associated with poor design of equipment and facilities. This is where the concept of hygienic design of Varpe equipment comes in.

What is considered a hygienic design?

The design of a piece of equipment or installation is considered “hygienic” if it incorporates features that reduce or eliminate the risk of constituting a source of contamination for food, both directly and indirectly.

The hygienic approach in the design, construction, installation and use of equipment involved in the processing of food or pharmaceutical products is one of the best preventive actions to ensure the safety of manufactured products and minimize their risk of contamination.

Hygienic design also contributes to savings derived from lower cleaning and maintenance costs thanks to our hygienically designed equipment.

Influence of equipment on contamination

Therefore, if they are not correctly designed, the equipment can have a huge influence on the contamination of a product during the production process.

The causes can be many:

• Fragments of metals or plastics (clamps), loss of screws, washers, etc. that can end up in the product.
• Incorporation of lubricants that can reach the final product.
• Cleaning products that also end up contaminating the product.
• Components or ingredients that do not correspond, from remnants of previous productions.
• Cleaning and maintenance that is complicated or of difficult access that does not allow correct hygiene.
• Favoring microbial growth due to product retention, sediments or water.
• Dirt in the environment caused by the equipment itself (dust, condensation, particles, etc.)

PRINCIPLES OF HYGIENIC DESIGN

The hygienic design is based on three very simple principles:

1. Prevent the equipment from having spaces where dirt is stored.
2. Facilitate the cleaning of the machinery.
3. Facilitate the inspection and maintenance of the equipment.

How is it achieved?

Is hygienic design a legal requirement?

In the food sector there is a huge legal framework that contributes to food safety. Within this framework, constant references are made to the importance of hygiene and disinfection of both equipment and facilities.

In this sense, we can find several regulations. Some are mandatory for the manufacturer of weight control or X-ray inspection equipment and others for the food producer. In addition, there are also international standards or recommendations for hygienic design, such as the EHEDG (European
Hygienic Engineering & Design Group), 3-A Sanitary Standards or the NSF, which deserve a separate mention.

In this sense, we can find:

• Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 – on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
• Regulation (EC) 2023/2006 – on good manufacturing practices for materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.

Directive (EC) 2006/42 on machinery is applicable, among other sectors, to machinery that is to come into contact with food, cosmetics, and drugs and establishes general criteria on hygienic design:

• The equipment must be designed and constructed in such a way that any risk of contamination of the product is avoided.

• The materials must be able to be cleaned before each use (if this is not possible, use disposable elements)

• All surfaces in contact with products that are not surfaces of disposable elements must be smooth and have no roughness or cavities, reduce projections and edges as much as possible, must be easily cleaned and disinfected and be drainable.

• The machine must be designed and manufactured in such a way that any infiltration of substances, any accumulation of organic matter or penetration of living beings, in areas that cannot be cleaned can be avoided.

• Auxiliary products must not represent a danger to health.

The RE (EC) 852/2004 regulation that the food producer must comply with points in the same direction in terms of hygienic design criteria, not only in machinery but also in facilities and the production process.

For this reason, it is so important to find a manufacturer of weight control and X-ray inspection equipment that takes into account all these principles and regulations of hygienic design. In this way, production safety will be reinforced and incidents due to product contamination will be avoided.

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