Food safe
Date: 14.02.25
Food processing equipment needs to be adapted to ever more stringent demands from consumers and regulators. Trelleborg has developed materials and testing processes to meet such requirements.
Consumers want foods that suit healthy, fast-paced lifestyles. They want nutritious options that take little or no preparation before eating, and increasing numbers want plant-based foods. These are meals that entail intensive processing, so manufacturers must innovate to stay ahead.
“If you take one of the big trends, like vegan, plant-based foods — the products look like meat but the process behind them is more complicated,” says Dr. Ana Lucia Vasquez-Caicedo, Global Technical Manager, Food & Beverage, at Trelleborg. “Often food processors need to adapt their equipment to handle a wider range of ingredients with different physical properties, mostly containing particles or fibers that are more abrasive to equipment surfaces.”
The rise of convenience and plant-based foods are not the only trends driving change in the food processing industry. Consumers also want to know that their meals are ethically sourced and sustainably produced with minimal waste. At the same time, surging population growth and the rise of the middle class in emerging markets are pushing manufacturers to produce an ever-changing array of products to suit local tastes.
And it is not just consumers who are more demanding. Regulators in the EU, the US and China are introducing stricter rules governing materials used for food processing to ensure both consumers and the environment are protected — rules that do not always overlap.
“If a food contact material is compliant in the European Union, in many cases that will also work for the US Food and Drug Administration, but then Chinese regulations might present an additional challenge,” says Dr. Petra Hilt, Global Manager Compliance Food Contact Materials at Trelleborg. “We must find a good solution for rubber and plastic materials that works well technically but is still compliant. This is challenging because there is a limited number of ingredients from which we can choose.”
Elastomer seals play an integral role in food processing equipment. They prevent leakage of fluids, lubricants and other media, protecting equipment and foods from external contaminants. Seals must be compliant with the fats, oils and acids required to make various foods, while withstanding high temperatures, high-pressure cleaning regimens, such as cleaning in place and steam in place, which ensure production cycles can be repeated again and again. Turcon Varilip PDR rotary shaft seals offer excellent performance at high rotational speeds in food mixers.
Conditions are now so demanding that in response Trelleborg introduced FoodPro, a range of polymer-based materials specifically designed to meet the unique requirements of the food and beverage industry. FoodPro materials satisfy regulatory requirements globally and, tested in-house, operate in a wide range of operating temperatures and within a broad array of cleaning techniques. This enables Trelleborg experts to provide recommendations, whatever the application.
“Following an eight-hour production cycle of something like yogurt, equipment must be cleaned well in order to ensure that microorganisms can’t grow in the processing system,” Vasquez-Caicedo says. “Some equipment can’t be dismantled, in which case it is flushed with cleaning solutions that remove dirt and microorganisms. These can be very harsh on sealing materials. With FoodPro, we’ve tested everything for compatibility with cleaning processes and can show how many cycles the customer can expect without seal replacement.”
Indeed, rigorous testing is part of what sets Trelleborg apart, Vasquez-Caicedo says. The company develops and tests the performance of seal designs and materials at dedicated in-house facilities. Those tests include simulation techniques such as finite element analysis, or FEA, which models and evaluates seal performance under various conditions and enables a team to qualify prototypes initially in the virtual world.
“Whenever you change a material, you need to re-validate the application,” Vasquez-Caicedo says. “We set up test rigs, simulating application conditions, so that we know completely from the beginning of a design how a material change will perform in the final application, and we can provide our customer with a lot of good data to support this. Of course, they need to validate the proposed design further, but we work hard to provide our customers with as much information as we can, so that they can reduce validation time.”
Vasquez-Caicedo and Petra Hilt are currently adapting three new test rigs to evaluate the performance of various materials and designs. These will enable customers to respond rapidly to further shifts in the regulatory landscape and help Trelleborg support customers by identifying and tailoring sustainable materials for their specific needs, Petra Hilt says.
“The regulatory landscape has become so difficult that you need sufficient expertise to understand and comply with demanding regulations,” she says. “You need to have dedicated experts experienced in the food and beverage segment to serve demanding customers within the food processing industry. It’s something that only a few companies can do.”
“If you take one of the big trends, like vegan, plant-based foods — the products look like meat but the process behind them is more complicated,” says Dr. Ana Lucia Vasquez-Caicedo, Global Technical Manager, Food & Beverage, at Trelleborg. “Often food processors need to adapt their equipment to handle a wider range of ingredients with different physical properties, mostly containing particles or fibers that are more abrasive to equipment surfaces.”
The rise of convenience and plant-based foods are not the only trends driving change in the food processing industry. Consumers also want to know that their meals are ethically sourced and sustainably produced with minimal waste. At the same time, surging population growth and the rise of the middle class in emerging markets are pushing manufacturers to produce an ever-changing array of products to suit local tastes.
And it is not just consumers who are more demanding. Regulators in the EU, the US and China are introducing stricter rules governing materials used for food processing to ensure both consumers and the environment are protected — rules that do not always overlap.
“If a food contact material is compliant in the European Union, in many cases that will also work for the US Food and Drug Administration, but then Chinese regulations might present an additional challenge,” says Dr. Petra Hilt, Global Manager Compliance Food Contact Materials at Trelleborg. “We must find a good solution for rubber and plastic materials that works well technically but is still compliant. This is challenging because there is a limited number of ingredients from which we can choose.”
Elastomer seals play an integral role in food processing equipment. They prevent leakage of fluids, lubricants and other media, protecting equipment and foods from external contaminants. Seals must be compliant with the fats, oils and acids required to make various foods, while withstanding high temperatures, high-pressure cleaning regimens, such as cleaning in place and steam in place, which ensure production cycles can be repeated again and again. Turcon Varilip PDR rotary shaft seals offer excellent performance at high rotational speeds in food mixers.
Conditions are now so demanding that in response Trelleborg introduced FoodPro, a range of polymer-based materials specifically designed to meet the unique requirements of the food and beverage industry. FoodPro materials satisfy regulatory requirements globally and, tested in-house, operate in a wide range of operating temperatures and within a broad array of cleaning techniques. This enables Trelleborg experts to provide recommendations, whatever the application.
“Following an eight-hour production cycle of something like yogurt, equipment must be cleaned well in order to ensure that microorganisms can’t grow in the processing system,” Vasquez-Caicedo says. “Some equipment can’t be dismantled, in which case it is flushed with cleaning solutions that remove dirt and microorganisms. These can be very harsh on sealing materials. With FoodPro, we’ve tested everything for compatibility with cleaning processes and can show how many cycles the customer can expect without seal replacement.”
Indeed, rigorous testing is part of what sets Trelleborg apart, Vasquez-Caicedo says. The company develops and tests the performance of seal designs and materials at dedicated in-house facilities. Those tests include simulation techniques such as finite element analysis, or FEA, which models and evaluates seal performance under various conditions and enables a team to qualify prototypes initially in the virtual world.
“Whenever you change a material, you need to re-validate the application,” Vasquez-Caicedo says. “We set up test rigs, simulating application conditions, so that we know completely from the beginning of a design how a material change will perform in the final application, and we can provide our customer with a lot of good data to support this. Of course, they need to validate the proposed design further, but we work hard to provide our customers with as much information as we can, so that they can reduce validation time.”
Vasquez-Caicedo and Petra Hilt are currently adapting three new test rigs to evaluate the performance of various materials and designs. These will enable customers to respond rapidly to further shifts in the regulatory landscape and help Trelleborg support customers by identifying and tailoring sustainable materials for their specific needs, Petra Hilt says.
“The regulatory landscape has become so difficult that you need sufficient expertise to understand and comply with demanding regulations,” she says. “You need to have dedicated experts experienced in the food and beverage segment to serve demanding customers within the food processing industry. It’s something that only a few companies can do.”