Cleaning without chemicals

The system can be used on scales and sensors, conveyors, wrappers, slicers and dicers, feeders, gaskets, electrical panels, refrigeration systems and more.

To date, bakeries have been among the most avid users of the system, followed closely by meat and poultry processing plants and confectionery processors. Current users of the system include Pepperidge Farm, Quaker Oats, McKee Foods and Nestle.

The raw product in meat operations makes equipment and the adjacent plant area highly susceptible to bacterial contamination. Meat processors employ dry steam with a technique called “tenting” to clean their equipment.

“They throw a tarp over the equipment, fill it with steam, and hold the temperature at 180°F for 15 minutes,” explains Diercks, noting that a Land O’Frost plant in Arkansas is currently using the system. “Everything is heated. [Conditions are so hot that microorganisms are easily killed.] Push steam through drains and listeria is history.”

A silver bullet

Hey-oh! Silver is back!

One innovative “emerging” sanitation technology is, ironically, thousands of years old. Ancient Egyptians, it seems, used to line urns with silver to prevent contamination of the contents.

“It’s a technology that sat idle for a long time,” laughs Mark Massie, sales manager for Bioguard Plastics, based in St. Paul, Minn. Bioguard has a licensing agreement with AgIon Technologies to use the latter’s anti-microbial technology for cutting boards and other applications in foodservice and food processing operations.

Bioguard Plastics employs the same (non-colloidal) silver ion technology used in AgIon flooring systems, caulks and sealants in its line of cutting boards for foodservice and food processing facilities. (The name derives from the terms “ion” and “Ag,” the latter being the periodic table representation for the element silver.) “It’s a slow-release antimicrobial agent that can be embedded in many products,” says Massie. “We add it to our cutting board plastic just as you would add color.”

The silver ions are held in cubes that resemble zeolite cages. Each cube contains a nanoparticle of silver with many silver ions available for reduction of microorganisms.

“Each time you cut into the surface, you expose more surface area to release silver ions,” says Massie.

Visually, the Bioguard cutting boards are discernible from other cutting boards by their silver color. According to Massie, their cost is within 10 percent of comparable high-density plastic cutting boards. The biggest difference comes in the invisible battle the boards wage against dangerous microorganisms such as listeria, salmonella, E. coli and a wide range of yeasts and molds.

“The (microbial) kill is approximately 93 percent within 10 minutes after inoculation depending upon temperature, moisture and the specific target organism,” explains Massie. “The key, compared to chemicals and other disinfectants, is that it works 24/7, 365 days a year.”

Foodservice operators are quick to recognize the value of the boards. “But the greater potential is in food processing OEM,” he adds. “Also in transport, in moving raw materials in a plant, in storage of raw meat and vegetables, and in handling or any process that involves breaking down pork, poultry and other meat or animal protein. Wherever there is a plastic component — like a conveyor or in a knife handle — there is an application for this technology.”

The Clene Coat line of coatings and sealants from AgIon Technologies (www.agion-tech.com), Wakefield, Mass., are resilient epoxies thermally compatible with concrete and resistant to bacterial contamination on the surfaces of an industrial environment, explains Joe Geary, AgIon vice president for upgrade solutions.

Its core product is Clene Coat, a top coating for walls and ceilings. But food plants have countless corners that make it easy for bacteria to propagate.

“Half the problem is getting into the irregularities of shapes, floors, corners and intersections,” says Geary. “That’s why we have flexible caulks for expansion joints and intersections between floor and wall and wall panels. Water and organic matter in a food plant invite mold problems. Normally, caulk will harbor mold. But our caulk is a mold-resistant epoxy.”

Other products in the line include a quarter-inch “trowelable” caulk to protect the underlying concrete slab; Clene Coat SL, a self-leveling coating; and Clene Seal, a light-duty sealant that protects against moisture migration while preventing bacterial growth.

“The unique theme of this product family is the antimicrobial activity of the technology,” says Geary. “Ionic silver is the active ingredient, and it works against the broad spectrum of bacteria found in a food facility. We build it into the system to resist microbial growth 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”