Sterilization in Food Production

Processing meat, poultry, and “fresh cut” fruit and vegetables – whether industrially or manually – is a particularly sensitive area in the food industry. Despite compliance with official hygienic regulations and the use of individual company strategies, the underlying issue here is potential contamination with harmful microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, or viruses.

This type of contamination can occur due to germs introduced along with raw produce – also via polluted air, unclean conveyor belts, carving/portioning knives, or even germ-contaminated packing materials, for example. Moreover, high humidity in processing and cooling rooms can contribute to a drastic increase in germs, which can negatively effect products’ life span and resulting quality.

Air contaminated with microbes can result in bad batches. To limit the resulting risks, a growing number of companies are choosing to disinfect interior air and surfaces in production spaces using UV-C light. When treating indoor air using UV-C light (w/o ozone) – for use in spaces where people or animals are always present – UV-C radiation with a wavelength of 253.7 nm is used alone, which suffices to destroy microorganisms such as bacteria, mold, and yeast.

By using UV-C radiation, up to 99.9% of microorganisms can be destroyed and their reproduction prevented. The shelf life of food products can be significantly extended in this way. The UV-C disinfection system ensures safe, hygienic production and should be the standard for quality assurance in all factories.

This technology can be custom-designed in conjunction with production requirements and can have  the following applications:

• A module for air-conditioning ducts
• An independent device for sterilizing circulating air
• A ceiling system in the air flow in front of evaporators
• A device for sterilizing conveyor belts
• Sterilization for carving and portioning knives

The UV-C systems are a crucial component for quality assurance in the chain of hygiene. No chemicals are used – it works purely on the principles of physics.