The food and beverage industry is all about timing. The products have to be picked at the best time, the ingredients have to be removed from the oven at just the right second and the produce has to hit the shelf at the optimum moment.
Anything that slows down, impedes or holds up this delicate balance of timing can lead to a long list of headaches down the line, from missed orders and spoiled produce to low profits and inefficient working spaces.
And the floor area is no exception to this, as if it takes too long to install then it can affect the site’s opening schedule and if downtime has been called to refurbish an existing building then it’s crucial that the facility is up and running again on time!
Fast and Functional F&B Flooring
Fast turnaround flooring solutions are therefore a significant advantage when making sure that a business doesn’t suffer as a result of a flooring project. However, many flooring systems utilised in the F&B industry can take quite a long time to apply, dry and be ready for work. For example, thick resin coatings can take a long time to fully cure while something like tiles or dairy brick will incur a lot of labour and time to lay down.
And the answer isn’t just to go for a speedier solution at all costs, as often this will result in an inadequately robust surface that won’t be able to withstand the site’s daily operations. If this happens then the floor will just fail much earlier than desired and result in the facility having to schedule in further downtime to repair or replace the now damaged surface.
Sacrificing functionality for speed will only result in a failed floor area.
Thankfully, flooring solutions are available that can be quickly and easily applied and that will also be able to provide the durability, cleanability and longevity required within the F&B industry.
For example, polyurethane floor screeds, such as the Flowfresh range from Flowcrete UK, can be ready for use much earlier than most alternative materials. Given the right ambient conditions, a 9mm Flowfresh polyurethane system can be ready to receive light traffic only 12 hours after application! And the floor is able to achieve a full chemical cure within a matter of days – significantly cutting down the curing time of other resin materials, which can take weeks or even up to a month.
If you’d like to see how this type of floor is installed just check out the video below.
Brooklyn Brewery’s Flooring Refurbishment
The suitability of Flowfresh for large-scale renovation projects was exemplified recently when Brooklyn Brewery undertook a major upgrade project at its facility in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighbourhood.
Approximately 750 m2 of the slip resistant polyurethane system Flowfresh SR was used to bring the floor within Brooklyn Brewery’s main production area back up to a high standard.
Thanks to the easy to install, quick curing nature of Flowfresh, the new floor could be applied over a three-month period during the weekends, when no production was taking place. Each area was prepped and poured on Saturday, then on Sunday the floor was top coated to allow for operations to kick off again on the Monday morning.
And it’s not like this was an easy environment to install the new floor in, as much of the equipment remained in-situ throughout the install and the applicators were often working low down and in tight spaces. A lot of labour was involved, with crews applying a degreaser prior to pressure washing, followed by treatment with a diamond grinder to remove contaminants in the cement, much of it worn down to expose aggregate.
Brooklyn Brewery’s new floor had to be installed in a lot of tricky places and while the plant was shutdown for the weekends.
Despite all of these challenges, the easy workability and rapid application properties of Flowfresh meant that the new floor was ready on schedule and never held up the site’s ability to make large quantities of their world-renowned beer.
If you’d like to learn more about flooring for the food industry, then Flowcrete UK has created a new website dedicated to this topic. You can also ask questionsand get answers direct from the experts by emailing thefoodteam@flowcrete.co.uk.
