A source of guidance

The EHEDG has been busy recently. Two new guidelines have been published and the new Conveyors subgroup has had its first meeting. Read more about the Group’s quarterly achievements

Two new guidelines are now available:

• Integration of Hygienic and Aseptic systems, March 2006

Hygienic and/or aseptic systems comprise inter alia individual components, machinery, measurement systems, management systems and automation that are used to produce food products, medicines, cosmetics, etc. This horizontal guideline is about the hygienically safe integration of hygienic (including aseptic) systems, focusing on food production.

Systems and components are frequently put together in a way that creates new hazards, especially microbiological ones. Deficiencies during the sequence of design, contract, design-change, fabrication, installation and commissioning are often the cause of these failures, even when specific design guidelines are available and are thought to be well understood.

This document examines integration aspects that can affect hygienic design, installation, operation, automation, cleaning and maintenance and uses system flow charts and cases describing the integration processes and decision steps.

• Hygienic Welding of Stainless Steel Tubing in the Food Processing Industry, July 2006

The guarantee of hygiene required for continuous production in the food industry depends considerably on the quality of the surfaces in contact with the process fluid used.

For piping systems in stainless steel, which is the main material employed in such applications, the junction points between different sections of the pipeline realised by means of welding (permanent joints), are zones susceptible to deterioration of surface characteristics.

In sanitary processes, a large number of installation errors are generally related to welding procedures that are not compatible with the hygienic requirements of the type of production.

The target users of this guideline are mainly persons directly responsible for welding operations (technicians, engineers, supervisors, etc.) in food processing plants, or those in charge of their training, but the document may also constitute a reference for non-technical decision makers.

The only welding method considered is the GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding, commonly known as TIG) without filler material (autogenous weld).

The guideline first describes the requirements for a weld destined for hygienic uses. The possible defects that can affect the weld are then listed and, finally, the procedure for executing a state-of-the-art weld is illustrated, including the preparation of pipe ends and a final inspection.

www.ehedg.org/f_guidelines.htm

Tube-Liner does it

Transport vessels such as Big Bags are frequently filled and discharged by means of open devices. This process may cause contamination of the bulk solids by substances or micro-organisms from ambient air. A solution is provided by the ProClean Protective- Liner-System.

The number of children who fall ill with neurodermatitis is growing every year. One reason may be the consumption of baby food that contains allergenic ingredients. Among them are, for example, nuts, cow’s milk products, citrus fruits or certain kinds of vegetables. The purity of foods and the unbroken history of the raw materials used, play an increasingly important role in this context. The same applies to the processing hygiene because spores of micro-organisms may also cause allergic reactions.

Raw material control

In order to assure the purity and the history in compliance with the EU-Regulation 178/2002/EG, raw materials from vendors must be precisely documented and controlled. The incoming goods inspection will render proof that the raw materials do not contain any allergenic substances.

The food industry increasingly employs multi-purpose facilities. These facilities offer many advantages to users but involve risks of carrying over product or cross-contamination. Both can only be avoided by in-depth and validated facility cleaning. A facility design in accordance with the EHEDG-Guidelines facilitates such cleaning procedures.

The powdered raw materials often arrive in Big Bags. This type of packaging material has proved to be trustworthy as it concerns storage and forwarding of the final and/or intermediate products. Critical issues for possible product contamination are the filling- and discharging processes of the Big Bags. Safety is guaranteed only by contained systems such as the ProClean-Protective Liner System. It allows standard Big Bags to be filled and discharged absolutely contamination-free (in the µg area). It reliably prevents cross-contamination as well as the entry of spores from ambient air. ProClean reduces emissions to a minimum due to a high containment (achievable values up to 1µg/m3). The system is compatible with any industrial bulk material receptacle furnished with either fixed and/or flexible bottom outlet.

The protective tube-liner of the ProClean-Connecting System completely envelopes the product entry port and the receptacle outlet. When removing the empty receptacle, the tube shuts off the receptacle outlet and the product entry port. In this way, both the receptacle outlet and the product entry port do not allow the penetration of impurities from the environment or the escape into ambient air. The empty receptacle can be removed from the discharging station without any product emission. By pulling the tube-liner from the liner-depot, which is concentrically positioned above the connecting system, a new and clean piece of tube-liner is ready for the next bundle. The design of the system even allows the change of the liner-carrier in a contained manner. Special attention should be paid to the design of the Pro-Clean-Connecting-System for Big Bags. It is equipped with a dedusting- and/or evacuation module with integrated filter element.

Rice flour for baby food

A Belgian enterprise utilises the ProClean Protective Tube-Liner Connecting System for the contained filling of rice flour into Big Bags. Rice flour is used as supplementary nutrition for babies. The ProClean facility prevents the contamination of the rice flour with bacteria from ambient air – bacteria which would cause the contamination of baby food.

The filling of Big Bags takes place inside a monitored room in the 100,000 class category. There, the receptacles are connected to the protective liner filling-head, inflated with cleaned air (Hepa Filters) and subsequently filled. The filled Big Bags pass a product-lock on a conveyor belt and arrive in an adjacent room, where they are loaded onto palettes.