Food & Food processing industry

The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The term food industries covers a series of industrial activities directed at the processing, conversion, preparation, preservation and packaging of foodstuffs.

Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex industrial methods used to make convenience foods.

The are several risk which can occur in the food industry whilst performing a cleaning job. The obvious risk of the confined spaces where ventilation is limited, or working inside the factory underneath conveyor belts. Another risk which might not be the first to come to mind, is the risk of an explosive environment.

This particular risk is also known as dust explosive risk, referring to the ATEX directive as ATEX zone 20/21/22. This is found in the food & food processing industries because of particles which stay airborne and thus can create a dust explosion. Examples of these explosive risk environments in the food & food processing industry can be found in the factories where they work with sugar, flour, milk powder, cacao, tea, grains, herbs and also additives.

The cleaning happens in and around the process but also in the storage containments before it is either transported or processed. In case of the latter, when changing of product is required, this will need to be clean to avoid a chemical reaction.

In terms of the process itself, in the majority of the factories there are conveyor belts. To prevent the entire process being stopped for the reoccurring cleaning, this can be done by a robot that sucks up the spillage underneath the conveyor belts. This form of online cleaning will then not limit the production as this can continue whilst the operator is out of the line of fire.

Other areas such as bunkers or silos where the product is stored can also be cleaned without the intensive labour and avoid operators to go into these hazardous locations by utilizing one of the robotic solutions of KOKS Robotics.