Design a Food Factory
Unlike other manufacturing factories, food factories must adhere to hygienic practices that require product, packaging, waste, people and air to follow a certain flow through the whole site. It is therefore critical to understand the whole process before bolting on an extension.
It does not matter if you are building a new factory or a small preparation room - all food factory designs must go through the same process.
1. Capacity
Capacity information – write down all the ingredients, packaging, washing, utensils, and waste that goes into, and out of, the process you are designing. Give each item a process speed. This will give you the average and peak traffic through the room.
Example: Cheese pizza topping hall
Product In: cooked pizza base (24000/day), tomato paste (50 Litre drum/Day), grated cheese (100kg/day)
Finished packaging In: Plastic pizza base (24000/day)
Utensil in: Tomato paste drum (1 drum/day), cooked pizza base trays (240/day), and grated cheese packaging (20 bags/day).
Waste out: Waste cheese (0.5kg/day), paste (0.1kg/day) and pizza base (0.3kg/day).
Wash out: Tomato paste drums (1 drum/day), pizza base trays (240/day), machinery/conveyor belts and utensils (4 Conveyor belts/day, 1 knife/day, 2 paste applicators/day).
2. Process Flow
Select preferred process method and favoured equipment based on product type, range and sales forecast. Put this information into a process flow chart with all the inputs and out puts for each task.
Example: cheese pizza topping hall
Basic conveyor, manually insert plastic pizza base, auto past applicator, manual spread past and manual sprinkle cheese.
3. Room size
Match storage to process speed. When the factory is running at full speed, all rooms are full. Do this for all storage rooms including wash and packaging store etc
Example: cheese pizza dispatch
Pizza topping line runs at 50 pizza a minute.
Dispatch after 8 hr production = 8*60 = 480 minutes production = 480*50 =24000 pizzas/8hr production.
50 pizza per box = 480 boxes
20 boxes per pallet = 24 pallets
Pallet = 1m x 1.2m = 1.2m2 x 24 pallets = 28.8m2
Add 25% real life space for moving pallets and inefficient packing.
= 28.8 *1.25 = 36m2 dispatch space (non-staked) over 8 hr production.
4. Auxiliary Rooms
Add food factory specifics such as personal change, wash rooms, packaging stores, product separation, viewing galleries, quality assurance rooms, plant rooms and production offices etc
Example cheese pizza topping room
Changing room for staff working with cooked pizza base, packaging room for the plastic pizza base. Somewhere to wash the used cheese trays, sauce barrels and production equipment. Depending on your HACCP plan an air lock for waste to the factory exterior may also be required? As you can see from the picture, the auxiliary production rooms can add up to 220% floor space to your production room.
5. Product Flow
Map product flow through the design. Do a sketch and draw lines for the product, waste, people, washing and packaging. The aim is to elevate cross contamination in particular the product and waste.
Example cheese pizza topping room
Product, ingredients and packaging in from the top left, people from the left, waste out the bottom, clean tubs and trays out the top right and product out through the top. Interchanging the auxiliary rooms will define factory flow and eliminate cross contamination.
6. Room Spec
Select room specification finish depending on the room purpose. Consider floor finish and kerbs to prevent cross contamination between rooms.
Example cheese pizza topping room
Stainless kerbs with PIR wall on top. Resin floor with stainless drains running away from production. This will aid wet wash down.
7. Tender
Go to tender for each work package e.g civils, floors, walls and ceiling, equipment, air handing, mechanical and electrical
8. Contact Willett
Contact Willett Food project Ltd to review your project to make sure you are on track.
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