Food and Beverage Processing Plants: Building for Hygiene

Food processing plant construction is building for cleaning. Floors, walls, joints, drains and ceilings must be washable, survive the cleaning regime and give dirt, water and pests nowhere to settle. The layout separates raw material from cooked or finished product, and cold rooms get their own envelope. The plant's food safety plan should drive the design, not follow it.

By Dhruv Agarwal · · 4 min read

A building that is cleaned every day

A food or beverage plant is washed, often daily and often with hot water and chemicals. Every surface either survives that and stays clean, or it cracks, debonds, holds water and harbours bacteria and pests. Problems surface in customer or certification audits, in product holds, or as a floor that has to be relaid while production waits.

The common misconception is that hygiene is a finishes upgrade added near the end. It is decided much earlier: by the layout, the slab levels and falls, the drain positions and the way walls meet floors and ceilings. A good coating on a badly detailed junction fails at the junction.

Areas and the services behind them

AreaWhat it demandsService
Process and packing hallsClear spans, washable envelope, services above ceilingsPEB industrial buildings
Wet process floorsResin floor, falls to drains, coved junctionsIndustrial flooring and hardstanding
Cold rooms, chillers, freezersInsulated envelope, vapour control, protected floorsPEB insulation and thermal performance
Drains and waterCleanable drains, trapped outlets, effluent routesPlumbing and drainage
Air handlingFiltered supply to clean areas, extract over heat and steamHVAC systems design
Fire protectionHydrant and sprinklers to the consultant's designFirefighting systems
Change rooms, offices, canteenControlled entry to production, staff amenityIndustrial and factory construction

Floors, walls, drains and falls

Floors in wet or hot areas need a finish that tolerates the cleaning regime and temperature swings. PU concrete flooring is widely used for this, with the wall junction coved so there is no corner for dirt to collect.

Falls are set in the slab, not in the topping. Drains go where water actually gathers, at the low points of each process area, and are open enough to be cleaned. Drainage design follows NBC 2016, Part 9, with the process engineer confirming effluent loads and any pre-treatment.

Walls and ceilings need impervious, washable surfaces, protection from trolley and forklift impact at the base, and no horizontal ledges. Every penetration for pipes, cable trays and ducts is sealed. ISO/TS 22002-1 sets out prerequisite programmes for food manufacturing, including the construction and layout of buildings, utilities and waste, and supports a food safety management system under ISO 22000:2018. In India, FSSAI sets the hygiene framework food businesses work within; how it applies to a given plant is for the business's food safety team to interpret.

Segregation: raw, cooked and people

Product should move one way, from raw intake through processing to finished goods, without crossing back. High-care areas, where cooked or ready-to-eat product is exposed, are separated by walls, doors and controlled entries with change rooms and hand-wash points. Drains must not run from raw areas into high-care ones, and air should move from cleaner to less clean areas. Waste leaves by its own route.

These are layout decisions. Once the walls and drains are built, procedures can only work around them.

Air is part of the segregation. High-care rooms are usually supplied with filtered air and kept at a higher pressure than the rooms around them, so that air leaks outward rather than in. Cooking, frying and washing areas need extract to remove heat and steam before it condenses on ceilings and drips onto product. The pressure regime, filtration and extract rates are set by the HVAC consultant with the food safety team, and the building has to be airtight enough for that regime to hold.

Cold rooms and pests are in the detail

Chillers, freezers and cold stores need a continuous insulated envelope with vapour control and careful junctions, or condensation and ice build up where warm meets cold. Freezer floors typically need protection against the ground beneath them freezing, as designed by the engineer. See what decides a cold storage building's envelope.

Pest control starts in the building: profile fillers at eaves and ridges, sealed panel joints and penetrations, insect screens, door seals and no void spaces inside walls.

Common mistakes

  • Coating a flat slab. Water ponds because the falls were never built in.
  • Square wall-floor corners. Dirt collects where a cove should have been.
  • Drains placed by grid, not by water. Low points end up away from the outlets.
  • Shared staff entry. People walk from raw to high-care without a barrier.
  • Open sheet profiles at eaves. Birds and rodents enter the roof space.
  • No extract over steam. Condensation forms on the ceiling and drips onto product.

What to ask before design is fixed

  • Has the food safety team reviewed the layout, flows and zoning?
  • Where are the falls and drains, and how are drains cleaned?
  • Which floor finish is proposed for each room, and why?
  • How are cold-to-warm junctions detailed against condensation?
  • How are penetrations, panel joints and sheet profiles sealed against pests?

Standards referenced

Food safety management in ISO 22000:2018; prerequisite programmes for food manufacturing in ISO/TS 22002-1:2009; drainage in NBC 2016, Part 9; fire and life safety in NBC 2016, Part 4. FSSAI requirements apply to the food business. Layout, drainage, floor specification and fire protection for a particular plant are established by the project's process engineer, consultants, the food business's food safety team and the authorities having jurisdiction.

Standards referenced

  • ISO 22000:2018 — Food safety management systems - requirements for any organization in the food chain (ISO)
  • ISO/TS 22002-1:2009 — Prerequisite programmes on food safety - Part 1: Food manufacturing (ISO)
  • NBC 2016, Part 9 — Plumbing services - drainage (Bureau of Indian Standards)
  • NBC 2016, Part 4 — Fire and life safety - industrial occupancy (Bureau of Indian Standards)

Frequently asked

Wet and hot process areas commonly use a resin floor that tolerates hot water, steam cleaning and thermal shock, with PU concrete the usual choice. Dry stores and packing areas may use other finishes. The right floor depends on the temperatures, chemicals and traffic in each room, and should be chosen with the cleaning regime in hand.

Because water has to reach the drains without ponding, and a thin topping cannot correct a flat or uneven base. The falls, drain positions and slab levels are set together at design stage. Correcting them after the floor is laid usually means breaking out and relaying it in a building that may already be running.

FSSAI sets the hygiene framework food businesses operate under, including general hygienic and sanitary practices for premises, and licensing is handled by the food safety authorities. How those requirements apply to a particular plant is interpreted by the food business and its food safety team. The building should be designed with their input from the start.

By layout first: separate rooms, one-way product flow, separate staff entries through change rooms and hand-wash points, and drains and air that do not run from raw areas into high-care ones. Procedures then maintain the separation, but they work far better when the walls and doors already enforce it.

Closing the gaps: sealed penetrations, fillers in sheet profiles at eaves and ridges, door seals and fast-acting doors, insect screens on openings, no voids inside wall panels, and no ledges where birds perch or dust settles. Pest control companies work better in a building detailed this way from the start.

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