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Flooring Considerations For Dairy Factories

When it comes to flooring for dairy factories, it’s critical that the flooring is of good quality so that the facility can operate successfully, hygienically and in line with the sector’s regulations.

It’s important to consider that because of the high demands dairy factories face, flooring needs to be able to withstand daily wear and tear in order to maintain a clean and functioning facility.

Read on to find out key flooring considerations for your dairy factory…

Flooring Challenges for Dairy Factories

The U.K’s dairy factories are highly productive, demanding and can be complex because they require close attention to detail to meet high demands whilst operating in a hygienic manner.

The challenges these dairy factories face is due to the scalability of the industry – every year dairy farms across the UK produce over 14 billion litres of milk. This creates challenges when keeping up with the pressures of the workload.

Dairy factory floors will be subjected to numerous rigours daily, including, cattle, forklift trucks, heavy machinery, milk spillages and intense cleaning routines.

These factors combined can potentially cause permanent damage to the floor and a failing surface will not only affect the movement of people, vehicles and animals but also cause an unsafe hygiene risk.

Contaminants can easily accrue within hard to clean cracks or gaps and this significantly increases the possibility of spoiled products, sick cattle, damaged reputations, and regulatory failures.

Dairy Farming And Flooring Regulations

Dairy factory flooring should be water-resistant and facilitate free draining to keep up with the frequency and intensity of cleaning and to prevent an unwanted build-up.

Flooring, therefore, must be able to withstand the pressure of the water, movement of the cleaning equipment and the exposure to cleaning chemicals.

Hygienic Dairy Factory Flooring

The dairy industry is tough on keeping the risk of food contamination low. It all boils down to managing hygiene and safety procedures.

Flooring in these facilities also has to meet a thorough list of criteria and standards.

Compliance with the food safety management system HACCP is essential. Meeting the hygiene requirements set by the UK Environmental Health Department is also key.

Resin Flooring Considerations For Dairy Factories

Thinking about Polyurethane (PU) or Epoxy floor resins?

Polyurethane

PU has high compressive strength, is resistant to scratches and can cope with high temperatures.

However, the big setback with polyurethane floor coating is downtime. This is because PU can take 3-5 hours to dry and 3-5 days to fully cure.

Fully cured means able to resist chemical attack – including water. If you spill water on the floor, it will influence the curing process, stopping the resin from achieving its full strength.

Therefore, you would have to close your dairy factory for at least 3 or maybe 5 days to allow the installation, causing you costly downtime.

Epoxy

Similar to PU, Epoxy has high compressive strength, meaning it can protect the underlying concrete base from impact, wear, abrasion, water ingress, oil, and other chemicals.

However, the cure time is much longer than PU – depending on temperature, it can take up to 7 days to fully cure, causing even longer shutdown times.

Another thing to consider with epoxy is that a damaged epoxy resin flooring is difficult to repair permanently because once damaged, repairs will require constant maintenance.

Due to the very long cure time, every repair that may need to take place will result in the inevitable shutdown of your facility for several days, adding substantial costs to your business.

In fact, epoxy will often discolour and corrode if exposed to lactic acid – not ideal for dairy products.

Why You should consider Acrylicon Resin flooring for your Dairy factory

Acrylicon resins for your dairy factory floor

Both Polyurethane and Epoxy are not best suited in dairy factories due to their long cure time and hygiene implications.

So, is there a resin flooring solution that combats these limitations…

You’ll be glad to know that there is. It’s Acrylicon’s Unique Resin Flooring.

Acrylicon is from the Thermoplastic family of resins. These resins can cure and un-cure, as they are reactivated by uncured resin.

With this, there’s no risk of delamination within the flooring system, as there are no joints. This is great for dairy factories because of the need to be working in a bacteria-free manufacturing facility.

Secondly, the cure time of Thermoplastic resins is unbeatable. Curing fully in two hours, Acrylicon will allow dairy factories to be back up and running with very little disruption to the business.

Conclusion

When considering the best flooring option for your dairy factory, it’s important to think about hygiene and whether you can afford to shut down for long periods of time.

For a free, no-obligation flooring assessment with one of our local experts, get in touch.

About Acrylicon

Acrylicon, the go-to industrial flooring company, has been implemented by Unilever, Walkers, McCain, Network Rail and many more companies that understand the cost implications of shutting down.

Their fast cure combined with the immense compressive strength saves you time, money and hassle when it comes to your industrial flooring. They can work at weekends or in business downtime to ensure minimal disruption to your daily processes.

With a life expectancy of up to 4-8 times longer than traditional resins, Acrylicon’s unique chemical composition ensures you get better value for money than from any other resin floor available.

Acrylicon’s long-lasting resin flooring is used across a variety of sectors including in food factories, commercial kitchens, warehouses, hospitals, supermarkets and car parks.

All new flooring comes with a 10-year performance warranty for complete peace of mind. Every installation is carried out by trained and certified regional installers so there are no split warranties.