Why vacuum selection matters in food factories
Walk into any food factory and you will find dust. Flour around mixers, sugar near packing lines, crumbs under conveyors. Most is removed with an industrial vacuum cleaner, often chosen because it was available not because it was right.
That matters. Food dust can be harmful to breathe in and many common products including sugar, cereals and flour are combustible. A poor choice of cleaning equipment does little to control that risk and can even make it worse.
The starting point is simple: understand what you are picking up and where you are working. From there the specification of the vacuum system, the filtration and the tools can be matched to the actual hazard instead of guessed at.
Engineering a machine for the job
BVC – British Vacuum Cleaners – is built by Quirepace in Fareham and supplied as industrial vacuums to order. Rather than pushing a fixed catalogue, the company sizes and configures each machine for the job it will be doing.
M-Class and H-Class machines are used where dust is hazardous to health. Where there is a risk of an explosive atmosphere an ATEX rated unit is required. In many food plants both issues apply so a single machine may need certification for hazardous dust and explosive dust together.
Primary filters can be supplied in a range of media including anti-static options. Hazardous dust machines use additional stages so that collected product stays in the bin and the discharge air is clean.
BVC Quirepace also designs application specific variants. Some units provide both vacuum and low pressure blown air to help dislodge stubborn deposits. Others are supplied with high level cleaning equipment for steelwork and services or are linked into production controls so they start and stop with the process. The aim is a vacuum that is part of the process design, not just another piece of mobile equipment.
Tools, hoses and the people using them
Performance at the nozzle can be as important as performance at the machine. Hoses that are too large for heavy material will not maintain enough conveying velocity. Hoses that are too small for bulky waste will block. BVC offers a range of hose sizes so the system can be set up for what is really being collected, whether that is dense product, light packaging waste or fine dust around machinery.
6 FDPP- www. fdpp. co. uk