With global headquarters in Kalamazoo, Mich, Hapman is a leading manufacturer of bulk material handling equipment and bulk solids conveyors with thousands of installations worldwide. Learn more about Hapman and what they can do for you at hapman.com
Food Processing: What are some of the challenges the food and beverage industry faces when it comes to cleaning their equipment?
Mike Zeluff: Some of the challenges that are faced right now in the industry—whether it's the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or even dairy equipment—include time constraints, employee safety, proper equipment assembly/disassembly and cleaning. Additional challenges include meeting guidelines and regulations as far as a group or organization’s own internal processes go, following Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and, lastly, establishing and following proper cleaning procedures for a new piece of equipment they may not be familiar with.
FP: What are the different levels of cleaning and sanitation?
MZ: I would say the levels are from dry-clean all the way to a complete disassembly and washdown with different types of agents. Different levels can be pretty broad. When it comes to cleaning and sanitation, a food processor could start at a ‘dry clean.’ A dry clean is a process where a processor uses inert materials like grains, salt, corn cob grit to clean parts of their equipment. When it comes to a dry clean, processors can run ingredients like what I just listed through their equipment to clean screws and auger. In my opinion, performing a dry clean is probably the lowest or minimal level of cleaning.
Clean-In-Place (CIP) systems are a good option. CIP as it is referred to in the industry, is a process where an equipment manufacturer provides a system designed to produce a blended CIP solution with chemical detection and process control technology. CIP chemicals are delivered at target strength without the need for long “getting up to strength” times.
Complete disassembly is probably the most thorough way to clean and sanitize equipment.
FP: From your perspective, what are the best ways to clean and avoid cross-contamination?
MZ: For our type of equipment—screw conveyors and Helix conveyors—the best way to avoid any cross-contamination at all is to do a disassemble, which is not a difficult process. Our conveyors are mechanical-type pieces of equipment, so they can be disassembled for cleaning.