Key hygienic flooring considerations for a commercial bakery
As environments where foodstuffs are processed for consumption, floors in bakeries must be hygienic. They must be easy to clean and therefore impervious - another important hygiene criteria. Plain concrete floors cannot be classified as hygienic and can create dust that enters the atmosphere.
Floors must be chemically resistant as some ingredients, oils and cleaning chemicals used in the bakery industry can attack concrete. All hygienic floor surfaces must therefore provide this important level of protection to avoid potential costly remedial works.
Like all workplaces, bakeries have a duty of care to keep their staff safe and healthy, which includes reducing trip hazards. What's more, cracks and pot holes also provide rough surfaces for dirt to cling to. And they are also difficult to clean, which creates an ideal environment for microbial growth. If left untreated, this too accelerates the deterioration of a concrete floor. Because of flour, oils and other bakery products that are spilt on the floor, it must also be slip resistant.
Bakery floors can be subject to extremes of heat, so any floor must be thermal shock resistant, especially so near ovens where hot racks maybe moved across the floor. This also highlights the need for the floor to be extremely durable and impact resistant.
The correct drainage plays a major part of any hygienic floor installation in a bakery and should be carefully considered at the start of the specification and design process. Drainage, although not extensive in bakeries, tends to be small gullies for general cleaning or channels in wash bays and around dividers. Drainage systems should be made of stainless steel for maximum hygiene and cleanability.
