The Hygienic Design certification outlines the rules to design and to manufacture food preparation appliances involving user-friendly sanitization. Reducing management times and costs, and facilitating the manufacturing cycle in the sector of large catering and professional appliances.
In the large catering and, more in general, in the sector of professional appliances for the food industry, the quality of the food product and the warranty and certainty of its healthiness are strictly connected with user-friendly cleaning and constant disinfection of appliances and equipment. The certification scheme of Hygienic Design certification works at this issue, operating for over 25 years in the sectors of agribusiness, consumer goods, catering, technical and professional services (laboratories, ICT, energy, research agencies, waste management, consulting firms and so on), of the public administration and personal services. Target, defining the rules for the design and the production of easily cleaned industrial machines and therefore simplifying sanitization operations, decreasing times and then facilitating the manufacturing cycle.
Currently, the certification and the relative rules are exclusively applied to machines and equipment intended for the food industry. Some example of groups of machines for the food industry are represented, among others, by machines for bakery products, baking ovens, machines for pasta, machinery for the production and processing of bakery products, pastries and pasta, baking ovens and plants.
How has the Hygienic Design certification been implemented and in what ambit does it intervene? We asked it to Maria Chiara Ferrarese, R&D – Business Development Executive Manager of CSQA.
“The certification to the UNI 1672-2 standard about “Machines for the food industry – Hygiene requisites” takes its first steps in the early 2000s. The starting point is the requirement, for the food industry, of granting on one hand the compliance with the Machine Directive, with the full legislative conformity of surfaces and materials in contact with foods, and on the other hand the safety of the processed product. The latter depends on several factors including the correct cleaning of the equipment and machinery used during the manufacturing cycle to avoid contaminations. The technical regulations ISO, EN and UNI regard the design and production specifications of machinery for professional use, too, as consensual, transparent and voluntary instruments. In this scenario, the Hygienic Design certification represents a further step at companies’ disposal to prove their reliability, the product conformity to the reference directives and to stand out on the market through a marketing strategy, too.
The cleanliness of machines and equipment involves notable economic repercussions in terms of costs, maintenance times and eventual machine downtimes. This leads to the gradual increase of the awareness of the importance of buying machines and equipment suitably designed for simplifying these activities, therefore of providing the company with machinery easily inspected, dismounted and so on. This need has resulted in the strengthened dialogue and interaction between food industry and manufacturers of industrial machines.”
What are the parameters certified?
The Hygienic Design certification concerns the design and structural characteristics of the machine, in relation to its possibility of being easily cleaned, sanitized and inspected to prevent, to eliminate or to reduce the risks of hygienic-sanitary nature.
The UNI 1672-2 regulation defines the hygiene requisites shared by the machines used for the preparation and the processing of the foods intended for human consumption and where opportune, for the animal feeding. In the design, it is necessary to consider the implications of dangers and of the necessary measures to eliminate or to reduce them. Contamination causes can be microbial, with presence of pathogens (microbial contaminants or toxins); chemical, including those caused by detergents, disinfections and lubricants; foreign bodies. For this reason, the machine parts are classified in 3 zones depending on their contact or non-contact with the food and consequently they can cause its contamination if not correctly managed: Food Zone, i.e. the surfaces in contact with foods (meaning the areas where the food can deposit to return then in the main flow); Splash Zone, where the food can “squirt” without returning to the original seat; Nonfood Zone, that is to say all other zones.
With specific reference to the splash zone, they have defined specific design requisites concerning, for instance, the materials that must conform to all law rules applicable to joints, fixing elements, drainage, interior edges and corners, dead spaces, bearings and entry points of the shaft, instruments, panels, covers, doors and control devices.
The food zone must be properly designed so that material surfaces and coatings are resistant, cleanable and, if necessary, disinfected, failure-free, resistant to cracking, chipping, flaking and abrasions; besides, they must prevent the penetration of undesired substances in standard use conditions (resistant to corrosion, non-toxic, non-absorbing, they must not transfer undesirable odours and colours, they must not contribute in the contamination or alter foods).
The surfaces of the food zone must be cleanable and, if necessary, disinfectable, continuous or sealed, they must prevent, as far as possible, the accidental product leak from the food zone and its return.
Permanent joints must be sealed and hygienic. Indentations, cracks, crevices, protruding edges, hollows and dead spaces must be avoided. Dismountable joints must feature an accurate and hygienic interlocking.
The fixing elements of the food zone must avoid the use of screws, bolts and rivets; if that is unavoidable, they must be cleanable and disinfectable. The drainage of the food zone must be preferably self-draining or anyway liquids must be removed in different way.
The structure of the outer angles of the food zone must allow an effective cleaning (disinfection), too.
Dead spaces should be avoided; unavoidable ones must be constructed in such a way as to be drainable and cleanable (disinfectable).
Bearings and shaft entry points must be positioned outside the food zone. The bearings, the sealed shafts and the rotary shafts of the food zone must be lubricated with food-grade lubricants and be cleanable (disinfectable).
What advantages does the Hygienic Design certification bring to companies?
Advantages can be differentiated on three levels: customer (food industry), producer and final consumer. From the customer’s point of view, the certification determines higher attention to its manufacturing requirements, further reduction of hygienic risks, better control of the food safety and greater clarity during the machinery purchase phase. For the producer, it introduces higher attention to food industries’ requirements as well as a product improvement accompanied by advantages of commercial type, design and manufacturing improvement and not only. Finally, for the final consumer it strengthens the guarantee of alimentary safety against contamination risks.
Moreover, how much does it influences, upstream, the product design, prototyping and production?
According to manufacturers themselves, in design phase the impact of the Hygienic Design certification is very exiguous indeed. The weight of a design carried out according to these regulations is minimal and, in any case, much lower compared to modifications made to the machine in the company in a successive phase.
Do you notice a diffusion trend of this certification?
To date, CSQA has released 9 certificates to companies producing technologies and machines for the collective catering and the food and wine industry. In general, food companies do not seem to provide for the Hygienic Design certification, yet, as purchase requisite for their machines, thing that is instead generally done for the purchase of raw materials and/or ingredients. Public and private purchase tenders are anyway starting spreading, providing for warranties in “hygienic design” matter and therefore they might suggest an increase of this certification diffusion.
