The food and beverage manufacturing industry is continuously evolving, but this year we’ve seen more changes than ever.
As one of the most highly regulated industries in Australia, it’s vital to meet all health and safety standards, while simultaneously retaining a high level of quality and service for your customers.
The presence of COVID-19 has demanded even more stringent quality control systems and companies have needed to take a forward-thinking approach to every aspect of their manufacturing process to ensure the safety of their employees and their customers.
Contamination, poor food quality and equipment failure can result in costly downtime, so it’s important to recognise the early signs of potential problems and take the relevant steps to mitigate them.
It’s important to recognise the early signs of potential problems and take the relevant steps to mitigate them.
If you’re experiencing any of the following issues, it may be a sign you need to upgrade your food and beverage infrastructure.
Odours and tastes penetrating your product
If poor quality food-grade hoses and fittings have compromised the quality of your food or beverage, due to outside odours and tastes penetrating your product, it’s time for an upgrade.
The solution:
Our PTFE, Feedflex Milk and Feedflex Beverage hoses are specifically designed to leave no odour or trace in the food traveling through the hoses and have a smoother lining for hygienic applications.
Both these hoses are manufactured using FDA approved material, with strict quality assurance protocols. They are flexible, with a strong, convoluted outer cover.
Food contamination
If you’ve experienced contamination within your food and beverage processing plant, you’re aware of how much it can seriously affect the health of your customers, your reputation and can even end in litigation.
There are four ways food contamination can occur:
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- biological contamination – contamination by organisms or materials it produces, including Salmonella, E. coli, Norovirus and Listeria
- physical contamination – contamination by a foreign object, such as plastics, metal, band-aids
- chemical contamination – contamination by a natural or artificial chemical
- cross contamination – contamination that occurs when bacteria or microorganisms transfer to the food or beverage causing harmful food-borne diseases.
The solution:
Purchasing quality hoses that withstand varying pressure and temperature, that are flexible, durable and bacteria resistant will help prevent contamination.
Pacific Hoseflex stocks a quality range of hygienic food-grade hoses and fittings. Our PTFE hoses have a non-stick liner, which helps prevent contamination when the lines are used for multiple types of food or beverage.
If your pipes are exposed to a variety of food mediums and chemical agents during the cleaning process, our PTFE products are suitable for Clean in Place Systems (CIP) that need to abide by stringent hygiene practices to prevent bacteria. They can transfer both mediums, with no need for disconnection.
The smooth inner and convoluted outer of the Slickflex hose ensures there’s no place for bacteria to survive. Both the Slickflex and Encapsulated hoses can be manufactured entirely encapsulated, made with the fittings or flanges overlapping with the PTFE liner to create one of the most hygienic hoses on the market.
Equipment failure
If you’ve experienced failure of malfunction within your food and beverage infrastructure, it’s time to take a closer look at the quality of your hoses and fittings. Cheap hoses and fittings may not be durable enough to withstand high temperatures of the vibrations from pumps, and may have a shorter lifespan.
The solution:
With food and beverage infrastructure you need joints that can endure movement and are strong and durable. Our PTFE or rubber expansion joints will outperform any on the market. They are designed to alleviate piping stress, absorb pipe misalignment, compression and extension, as well as noise and vibration.
Invest in quality, with our PTFE hoses that are purpose built to support the transfer of food and beverage products. All Pacific Hoseflex hoses and fittings comply with our international accredited management systems and Australian standards.
If you’re experiencing any of these problems with your food and beverage infrastructure, it’s time to contact Pacific Hoseflex. Our expert team will recommend the right hose for the job and give you professional advice you can rely on.
Contact our QLD office on 07 5593 4292, or email salesqld@hoseflex.com.au, or if you’re in WA call us on 08 9468 2840 or email saleswa@hoseflex.com.au
