Basic principles like safety and hygiene are of paramount importance for the employees involved in, and items resulting from, meat production and processing. A floor covering adapted to prevailing conditions allows you to protect your employees, while ensuring the quality of your products. This floor covering quite literally forms the basis of a hygienically self-enclosed system of production. Selection of the right materials, along with suitable design and construction of the floor covering, is essential for a properly smooth production process. Tiles form the outer finish of the floor structure, while protecting the underlying layers from the ingress of moisture and other external impurities.
Proper coordination of all the components of a floor covering is ultimately crucial for accident-free use. The European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG, www.ehedg.org), a private and independent non-government organisation, has drawn up a set of guidelines in recent years, which critically examine the requirements of the food industry. These include the need for floor coverings, while addressing and outlining possible improvements for problematic transition zones. The starting point is always best practice in the sector, along with the best possible cost-benefit ratio for the production facilities concerned.
Planning is everything
As the motto “planning is everything” says, all possible factors affecting the flooring of a meat-handling area should be considered from the start, given the fact that a floor consists of several built-up layers of material. Each individual layer has a special task to perform as part of the overall structural properties concerned. A durable and functional floor covering system requires the interaction of all these layers.
High quality is crucial when it comes to selecting materials, especially in the food industry. The joint between tiles mainly consists of a cement/water mixture, but this no longer meets the current requirements for daily, quick and easy cleaning in a meat-handling facility. If the joints are washed-out or inadequately filled, they do not just pose a risk factor for the basic hygiene of a meat shop; they can also become a cause of accidents involving employees. The exposed edges of the tiles can also provoke rattling noise from the wheels of pallet trucks and transport trolleys. Their heavy, concentrated loads may eventually break the edges of the tiles, resulting in unsightly cracks in the floor.
The ceramic tiles, together with their joints, form the top sealing layer of the floor system. Cracks in the tiles and defects in their joints can then allow dirt to enter, resulting in contamination of the floor layers below. Such faults in the floor system are likely to lead to long-term damage to the building as a whole, as the chemicals in cleaning agents have a corrosive effect on the layers underneath.
Floor-laying with the vibration procedure
The vibration procedure is an effective floor-laying method, which avoids a need for excessively wide joints. Conventional forms of installation normally result in joints of 6 to 10 mm in width. The relatively large surface area accounted for by these joints is more susceptible to acid or alkaline cleaning agents, and more likely to be washed out in a short time. Laying tiles with the vibration procedure can reduce joint widths to approximately 2 to 2.5 mm. This makes the floor more resistant. It also improves the physical appearance of the tiled surface, as the percentage of tile coverage per square metre is increased, thereby improving the overall visual impression created by the floor. The vibration procedure is especially recommendable for wet areas, as the narrower joints between tiles (and the smoother floor that results) significantly improve drainage. This type of floor covering can also be laid by machine, which saves time and ensures the proper filling of joints to the required height. Laying can also be based in many instances on the thin-bed method of installation.
Argelith’s decades of experience have shown that, in order to prevent tiles working loose and major floor damage, an epoxy-resin adhesive or a vibrating floor, in combination with an epoxy-resin bonding course, offer the best possible result. The epoxy resin ensures better adhesion of the tiles to the mortar bed, and provides a protective layer in the event of cracks or unevenness affecting the top layer. Argelith tiles, laid in combination with epoxy-resin adhesive bonding courses and joints, form a chemically resistant floor system of a type that cannot be achieved with standard cement-bonded joint grouting. These high-quality products must, however, be installed by expert flooring specialists. Epoxy resins in particular require a professional with sufficient experience.
Ceramic products
Argelith tiles are pressed with enormous pressure and fired at more than 1,200 °C, making them an extremely resistant material. Thanks to the use of extremely fine-ground, high-quality raw materials, Argelith fine stoneware tiles have a very low water absorption rate, which makes them suitable for installation in both wet and dry areas. The use of spacers ensures the proper formation of suitably narrow joints and consistent flush laying of the tiles, without excessive gaps.
Traditionally tiled or coated floors previously made it difficult to reconcile different slip-resistant surfaces with statutory hygiene requirements. However, modern fine stoneware tiles are no longer pressed in a batch, but produced as dry items in a single-press process. The density of tiles made using the dry-press procedure is significantly higher than in the extrusion process, which results in lower water absorption and better surface cleaning.
Slip-resistance and hygiene
The surface structures of the tile are optimally adapted to the required areas of application. Floor coverings in slaughterhouses, for example, require R13 V10 slip inhibition under the terms of the technical rules for workplaces (ASR A1.5/1.2). Surfaces adapted to the working area concerned offer optimum compliance with safety standards.
Synthetic-resin coatings are normally supplemented with additives designed to give them the desired slip resistance. The surface structure of a dry-pressed tile offers significantly better cleaning performance than aggregate-based coatings.
Hygiene is the most important factor affecting the food industry. Every food manufacturer wants to make sure that its installed equipment and floor coverings meet legal requirements. As a supplier of ceramic floor tiles, Argelith Bodenkeramik is a member of the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG). This organisation provides consulting services for machine and component manufacturers in the food industry, and endeavours to improve food safety and the quality of suppliers. Potential safety risks can therefore be identified quickly and prevented before they arise. Argelith also collaborates on the basis of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points Concept (HACCP). This system is designed to guarantee, in a preventive way, the safety of food produced for end-consumers. It covers, among other items, comprehensive cleaning instructions and hygiene requirements.
Cleaning routines
Cleaning? Easy. Just hose it down with water!
Food production is precisely the area where appropriate and careful cleaning procedures for floors and processing plants are most required. As a master butcher in charge of a meat-production operation, you need to achieve the best possible conditions for the handling of your products. Argelith’s fine stoneware, combined with mvtec technology, offers the perfect basis for this. Our micro-compacted fine stoneware tiles are made of high-quality materials that offer a basis for simple, fast cleaning; with a water absorption rate of less than 0.1% and resistance to acid and alkaline substances. An additional finish (coating or glaze) to the tiles makes cleaning and dirt removal even easier. This finish, in conjunction with mvtec technology, protects Argelith tiles from abrasion damage, and thus from increased contamination risk in the long term. A strong, long-lasting, resistant floor surface not only saves time and money; it also lets you concentrate on the manufacture of your end-product. Regular cleaning, the more often the better, is the key.
Most meat-processing operations currently use floor coverings based on synthetic resins, which seal the entire surface and act like ceramic tiles. Argelith’s fine ceramic stoneware is nothing like such a coating when it comes to cleaning routines. Test results obtained after cleaning show that Argelith fine stoneware, when used in combination with epoxy-resin or silicone joints, deals with food pathogens in a similar way to a coating. Testing examined the food pathogens Salmonellla Tythimurium (specifically the strain DSM 17058) and Listeria monocyogenes (DSM 15675).
Aesthetics
Aesthetic considerations are admittedly not at the forefront when it comes to industrial use, although they have become more important in recent years, as companies increasingly rely on transparency vis-à-vis the customer. This means that guided tours of facilities and images showing the company’s processes are more likely to appear on the corporate website, on social media or in the trade press. Indeed, which owner would not be proud to show off a clean, high-quality, flawless and visually appealing floor? Building clients and architects are never lost for ideas when it comes to visual appeal and patterns; floor-laying based on construction drawings showing tiles of different colours is becoming more commonplace. The Hexalith tile, with its honeycomb-like shape and reduced size, is ideal for a wide range of laying patterns. Conventional industrial floor coverings and finishes become unsightly or faded over time, due to the action of heat, chemicals or light. Tiled floors meanwhile retain their colour in the long term and, if properly cared for, can look the same after decades as they did on the first day.
If you have any questions regarding flooring and would like to know more about our tiles, please contact us.
