This article originally appeared in Food Manufacturing's May/June 2015 print edition.
The Food Manufacturing Brainstorm features industry experts sharing their perspectives on issues critical to the overall food industry marketplace.
In part three of this five-part series, we ask: What are the latest trends in conveying related to the food industry?
Jill Batka, President, Dynamic Conveyor, answered:
The latest trends with conveyors in the food processing industry revolve around food safety and saving processors money. One of the quickest ways to save money is with equipment that has been designed in a way that allows it to be efficiently and effectively cleaned to meet strict sanitation and hygiene requirements, while using minimal resources and time.
The elimination of nooks and crannies — those places where water can collect and bacteria can harbor — is one way to reduce cleaning time and resources. The elimination of nooks and crannies are important on the frame of the conveyor, but also with the belting. 100% closed surface belting offers a thermoplastic structure that eliminates bacterial harborage, facilitates effective cleaning, and enables achievement of zero-level microorganism counts, all while reducing belt cleaning time by up to 75%.
In addition to a conveyor system that doesn’t include bacterial catch-points, newer conveyor technology offers straightforward designs which are intuitively simple to disassemble and reassemble. The operation of assembly and disassembly occur without the use of tools. The removable components are large enough as not to get misplaced or dropped and possibly lost inside other equipment or food product.
Also see: Conveying Trends in the Food Industry Pt. 2
And: Conveying Trends in the Food Industry Pt. 1