OT food grade maintenance guidelines

[mordred]

I've been searching for some time on finding a manual onm food grade maintenance (not the sanitation) more specifically materials such as gaskets etc that can be used in a food grade facility my industry specifications is the pork industry. I've found tons of white papers on the subject but no one manual we obviously know about food grade lubricants some of the metals allowed and teflon gaskets but I recall there being several alternatives to teflon but cannot find a listing of those materails.

 

[leitmotif]

Mordred
Have worked in food industry briefly (thank the lord it was brief). Will answer within following limitations
short experience and that only in USA
Will use USA terminology agency abbreviations etc. You will have to translate to Canadian terms. Hopefully yours are more straightfoward than the USA alphabet soup.

I think your best resource for gasketing criteria would be the vendor and manufacturer. Some of the criteria would be
1. Cleanability
2. Durability in your environment (how often you can reuse the same flange gasket for instance)
3. Chemical compatibility (soaps, disinfectants, blood, pork grease etc)
4. Temperature rating
5. Material is rated /certified by manufacturer as meeting USDA and FDA requirements.

Dan Bentler

 

[naegely]

This is a link to 21 CFR Part 177, which lists acceptable polymers for food contact processing.


http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=177

 

[Andybr]

The AIB produce a useful book called "Engineering for Food Safety and Sanitation" which covers most things. It will probably not be cheap though.

 

[Lynn_2009]

I work in Meat Processing and we use lots of UHMW, which is a good alternative to teflon....if you don't need a self-lubricating plastic. UHMW is a food-grade plastic that does not splinter and is very durable and rather inexpensive.

 

[mordred]

Thanks for the link lots of useful info there also will look into that manual mentioned.