Food and beverage factories or food-related processing plants include a vast array of project types.
A dairy or beverage plant. A catering or industrial kitchen. A slaughterhouse or fish packing facility. A bakery. A fruit and vegetable processing plant. A snack production facility. Freezers, bottling lines, raw material processing, packaging and storage areas.
These are a few examples of businesses and areas that exist in the food processing industry. And each of them has its own specific requirements for flooring, walls, and other surfaces whether for new construction or renovation.
1Source: World Health Organization (WHO) estimate of global burden of foodborne diseases, 2015
Systems Plus Knowhow
A functional and purpose-built floor is key to a safe, hygienic production environment. Floors that are hygienic, non-slip, easy to clean and durable provide a secure, attractive place to work. Choosing and installing the right floor is critical to every work environment.
The floor must be hygienic, functional, tough and safe to walk on.
Sika offers solutions for food and beverage production plants. Sika helps owners, designers and project managers select and install the right floors, walls, ceilings, and other finishes for all their food processing and distribution needs.
Building from the ground up or renovating an existing facility provides opportunities to secure a company’s future success. Just as choosing the right food processing equipment is crucial to that success, so is choosing the right flooring, finishes and details and installing it all properly.
Three Critical Factors in a Food Processing Factory
1. Hygienic and Easy to Clean
Cleaning of floors in the food industry differs from site to site and from process to process. Regardless, the goal is the same - to maximize hygiene and minimize food infection risks.
Cleaning methods must always be adjusted to the environment and operations. For flooring, for instance, higher surface roughness requires more scrubbing and mechanical work. A rough floor needs to be flushed with higher amounts of water than a smooth one.
In principle, all food and beverage factories use similar detergents and chemicals. However, their use and cleaning procedures may differ between processes. In the same factory, there may be dry processing and wet processing areas with different kinds of contamination.
Learn more about hygienic floors and walls in food and beverage factories
2. Safe and Slip-Resistant
Employee safety is one of the most important requirements for any workplace. Slips and falls are among the most common injuries at work. Most occur because the floor is wet or contaminated.
Four main factors can cause a worker to slip and fall down. These include environment, organization, footwear and individual factors. When selecting the floor surface texture for required slip-resistance, the most important issues to consider are the degree of contamination, applied cleaning regime, slopes and the shoes or boots that personnel wear.
Learn more about personal safety in food and beverage factories
3. Tough and Durable
A durable floor is one that lasts a long time and one that resists deterioration and loss of performance. Main exposure factors include thermal shocks, chemical stress and mechanical loads causing wear and impact. Durable floors begin with quality materials, good design and sound workmanship.
Learn more about durability in food and beverage factories
Sika Floor and Wall Solutions in Food & Beverage
Sika flooring and wall coating solutions are designed according to these types of operations in general. However, the right solutions to be specified in your project should always come from personal advice of a Sika flooring expert because floor plans and requirements vary from project to project. Click on the areas below to learn more.
Extreme Exposure Areas in Production and Processing
Typical Stressors:
High temperature shocks, aggressive chemical exposure, constantly wet areas, high impacts
Typical Areas:
Abattoir, dairy production, fish processing, freezers
Sika Solution:
Sikafloor® PurCem® troweled or textured floor systems in 6 – 12 mm thickness
Wet Production and Processing
Typical Stressors:
Constantly wet, aggressive chemical attack, medium to high temperature shock, high impacts
Typical Areas:
Meat and vegetable processing, bottling areas and clean-in-place (CIP) areas
Sika Solution:
Sikafloor® PurCem® troweled, textured or smooth floor systems in 4 – 12 mm thickness
Laboratory and Social Rooms
Typical Stressors:
Pedestrian traffic, moderate impacts and chemical exposure
Typical Areas:
Quality control, development labs, social rooms
Sika Solution:
Sikafloor® MultiDur, Sika ComfortFloor® or Sikafloor® MultiFlex smooth or textured floor systems
Office Areas
Typical Stressors:
Pedestrian traffic
Typical Areas:
Offices, reception, cafeteria
Sika Solution:
Sika ComfortFloor® or Sikafloor® MultiFlex smooth or textured floor systems
Storage and Logistics Areas
Typical Stressors:
Moderate hygiene, high wearing and impact stress
Typical Areas:
Warehouse, storage, battery charging, cold rooms
Sika Solution:
Sikafloor® Dry Shake and Liquid hardener systems
Sikafloor® PurCem® or Sikafloor® MultiDur smooth or textured floor systems
Dry Production and Processing Areas
Typical Stressors:
Moderate use of water in cleaning, medium to high aggressive chemical exposure, impacts and high wear
Typical Areas:
Powder processing, bakeries, chocolate production, dry packaging
Sika Solution:
Sikafloor® PurCem® troweled, textured or smooth floor systems in 3 – 6 mm thickness
Sikafloor® MultiDur textured or smooth systems
Wall Coatings
Typical Stressors:
Moderate use of water in cleaning, medium to high aggressive chemical exposure, impacts and high wear, frequent cleaning and disinfection
Typical Areas:
All areas which require durable walls such as processing and production areas, extreme exposure, freezers, bottling areas, warehouse, labs and more
Sika Solution:
Sikagard® wall coatings, reinforced or unreinforced
Sika Solutions
Sikafloor® PurCem®
Sikafloor® PurCem® is a polyurethane cementitious hybrid flooring which delivers extreme performance in terms of mechanical and chemical resistance as well as reduced environmental impact. It's very durable, seamless, requires low maintenance and is available in many finishing options.
This system is resistant to high temperature variations and thermal shocks thanks to its special core technology - an elastic resin binder reacting with cementitious fillers.
All Sikafloor® PurCem® grades can be installed on damp concrete surfaces. Typically, Sikafloor® PurCem® floors are installed in a light or heavy anti-slip broadcast or in a full mortar build-up to ensure high performance in wet areas. A smooth, light-textured surface finish is available for dry areas.
Sikafloor® PurCem® Gloss is the latest innovation in this product family. The glossy finish allows for significantly easier floor cleaning. Specified with a smooth surface finish in a low- to medium- thickness, this solution can be an alternative to some Sikafloor® MultiDur systems.
The versatile Sikafloor® PurCem® floor range has a long time track record and can be found in a variety of heavy-duty applications.
It is commonly found in:
- Food and beverage processing facilities
- Professional kitchens
- Cool storage areas and freezers
- Heavy-duty processing areas, especially wet processing
Sikafloor® MultiDur
Sikafloor® MultiDur is the global standard by Sika for epoxy floor systems. As a workhorse for heavy-duty performance, these floor systems offer excellent mechanical strength, wear-resistance and chemical resistance. They are aesthetically pleasing, even if the color and design are not the major driver in choosing them. These floors excel in functionality and long-lasting performance.
Choose from smooth, textured, broadcasted (slip-resistant) and mortar finishes best suit the project needs of usability, safety and cleaning regime. Within the Sikafloor® MultiDur family, you will find special solutions with extremely high chemical resistance; solutions approved for clean room usage and electrostatic discharging, dissipative and electrically conductive flooring. For more basic flooring use and high-performance wall coating needs, we offer water-borne coating systems.
Sikafloor® MultiDur solutions are commonly found in:
- Storage, logistics and sales areas
- Production, processing and clean room areas
- Ground-bearing decks, car parks
- Commercial, public and residential areas
Sikafloor® Dry Shake and Liquid Hardeners
The Sikafloor® dry shake and liquid hardener range is used for concrete surface hardening, curing and sealing as well as for heavy-duty industrial concrete floors.
Our dry shake Sikafloor® powders are broadcasted directly onto the fresh concrete – before the powerfloat and power troweling finish – to create an extremely hard-wearing, monolithic concrete floor. Additional performance can be achieved through various liquid-applied surface hardeners, curing compounds and surface sealers. The latest development uses special finishing aid products to make colored and more aesthetic applications.
Sikafloor® concrete flooring solutions are commonly found in:
- Storage, logistics and sales areas
- Non-critical, heavy-duty industrial areas such as dry processing facilities
Details & Joints
The Floor's Weakest Part
Joints and junctions are the weakest part of a flooring system in industrial environments. They are exposed to similar stresses as the floor itself, but also need to accommodate possible movements in the structure or between building components.
