FOOD SAFETY INFORMATION EHEDG Guideline Document 8: Hygienic Equipment Design Criteria [4] , and Document 32: Materials of Construction for Equipment in Contact with Food [5] provide some hygienic equipment design criteria that can be applied to the manufacture of food industry cleaning equipment, including: • free of crevices and contamination traps; e.g., use of smooth welds, absence of small holes, recesses, and sharp internal angles • a smooth surface finish (R a less than 0.8μm) • easy to clean (and dry); e.g., quick and easy to dismantle/re-assemble, or of one-piece construc tion, or with easy access to all areas for cleaning and disinfection • made of food safe materials; e.g., no wood or glass, non-toxic • well constructed; e.g., durable, no foamed materials, not painted or coated • non-absorbent • appropriately temperature and chemical resistant The European Brushware federation (FEIBP) The FEIBP provide further criteria specific to brush ware and other manual cleaning equipment. In 1995, the group established a Professional Hygiene Brush Working Group to formulate a FEIBP charter [6] defining criteria for professional hygiene brushware (PHB). EHEDG and FEIBP guidance assist food manu facturers in selecting appropriately designed cleaning equipment for use in production, but there is a general lack of awareness with regard to the hygienic design of manual cleaning equipment that remains to be fully addressed. HYGIENIC DESIGN OF FOOD INDUSTRY BRUSHWARE The hygienic design of brushware poses a particular challenge. The most commonly used construction method for brushes and brooms involves the drilling of holes into a solid plastic block and then stapling tightly packed bristles into the holes. This creates possible dirt traps, both within the holes and between the bristles. The bristles themselves also present a foreign body risk. Other brushware manufacturing techniques do exist, such as fused filament and resin set, but investigations conducted by Vikan show that all have hygienic design issues. The hygienic design of equipment can be assessed in a number of different ways, including visual inspection, use of an ultraviolet (UV)-sensitive lotion, and use of a commercial washer disinfector soil. Often, simple visual inspection by eye or using magni fication combined with the guidance from EHEDG and FEIBP and common sense, can identify hygienic design issues. Figures 1a and 1b show the surface finish of a fused filament food industry cleaning brush where the numerous ‘creases’ in the surface provide ideal harbourage for contamination and will prove difficult to clean. Figure 1a. Surface of a fused filament cleaning brush shows numerous creases that can provide harbourage for microbial and other contamination. Figure 1b. A magnified view of a food industry cleaning brush with a difficult-to-clean surface finish. Copyright © Vikan A/S - Department of Research & Development First published, 2015. Revised, 2023 03
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