Floor Coatings for the Food Industry

What are our demands when it comes to the food we eat? Or, more specifically, to meat? While there may be many answers there is one aspect everyone would surely agree on: There must not be any compromise when it comes to cleanliness and hygiene during the various stages of food processing. Accordingly, in that industry specifically, standards are extremely high, and choosing the right floor can in fact make a crucial contribution to maximum hygiene in the processing of foodstuffs, and of meat in particular.

In 2014, Belgian meat wholesaler Walravens doubled its production area by adding a new building to its production site. The newly created meat-processing areas required a flooring solution – a solution that had to meet the strictest requirements in terms of hygiene as well as mechanical, thermal and chemical resistance and durability. This is why Walravens selected the Ucrete DP 10 performance flooring solution from Master Builders Solutions for installation on a surface area of 2,200 square meters.

A heavy-duty, maximum-hygiene solution

High hygienic requirements determine and restrict the selection of flooring solutions for installation in meat-production areas – as do the high levels of impact such a floor will have to resist. Frequent repairs, of course, are not an option: they incur unnecessary costs and disrupt operations. What, then, is the ideal solution? A robust floor covering that is easy to clean and does not offer dust and dirt any opportunities to hide unobservedly. In other words: Ucrete, the performance flooring solution for the highly demanding requirements of the food-production sector – as well as for those of the pharmaceutical, electronics, heavy, and chemical industries, to name but a few others.

So hard-wearing as to be indestructible

Ucrete flooring systems are based on concrete refined with polyurethane, optimally combining the properties of both materials. The floors are virtually indestructible – a colleague from Master Builders Solutions tried really hard to do so using a number of different methods – and completely hygienic at the same time. Often, these two properties complement each other, as the frequent cleaning with, for instance, hot water, steam or aggressive detergents is one of the main types of adverse impact floors in food-production areas are subjected to. Ucrete floors withstand temperatures of up to 130°C and down to -40°C, such as in cold-storage rooms. And they will also do so when subjected to thermal shocks, i.e. the very sudden exposure to very hot or very cold temperatures.

Highly acid-resistant

Even though cleaning is a large contributor, chemical impact on the floor is by no means restricted to that process. In food production especially, the floor is very likely to frequently come in contact with a wide variety of fats, acids or bases, many of which can have corrosive properties in larger quantities: Acetic acid, lactic acid, oleic acid and citric acid are frequent ingredients in food production, caustic soda is often used for cleaning, and all of those can damage other types of floor coverings, sometimes in an instant. Ucrete, though, remains completely unaffected.

Seamless and low-maintenance

Of course, Ucrete is impact resistant and generally extremely resistant to mechanical stress – as well as scratch-proof and, if required, skid-proof in accordance with EN and DIN standards. The durability of the polyurethane-concrete flooring is in part due to its seamless installation. Usually the first areas in a floor that require repair, joints are not only the weak spots of almost all types of floor covering but they are also the areas where dust and dirt collect most easily and which are extremely difficult to keep hygienically clean. The fewer joints in a floor, therefore, the easier it is to clean effectively and the lower the risk of premature deterioration.

Quick installation

All this makes Ucrete the perfect flooring solution for the foodstuffs industry: it is hygienic, extremely robust, durable, and, not least, odorless as well as flavor-resistant from the installation process onward – both key properties for use in the foodstuffs industry. And while we are on the subject of installation: During building construction, the quicker the floor is installed the sooner other operations can resume. And during renovation, speed is even more important, as replacing a floor often means shutting down operations. And downtimes, of course, can never be short enough. Here, too, Ucrete solutions excel: Many of the flooring systems can be installed during regular production breaks – such as over night or during the weekend. As an example: Ucrete UD 200 is ready for use after only five hours at a temperature of 10°C – a comparatively low temperature that usually delays the hardening of construction materials significantly.

A sustainable flooring solution

Ucrete floors can keep for decades and remain as functional as on their first day. And, of course, each and every replacement that does not have to be made means less impact on the environment – no unnecessary depletion of resources, no unnecessary consumption of energy. Moreover, the Eurofins Indoor Air Comfort Gold certificate confirms that Ucrete meets all European emission standards for floors in enclosed spaces. And Ucrete also contributes toward the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED score – product declarations indicating the points to be scored are available for all Ucrete systems.

Examples across the European food-and-beverage sector document Ucrete’s durability. A fact that – next to the systems’ performance properties – also played a role in helping Walravens’ decide what flooring system to select for installation.

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