Differences in the design of food processing and non-food processing plants
Many of the elements of plant design are the same for food plants as they are for other plants
particularly those processing industrial chemicals. However, there are many significant differences,
basically in the areas of equipment selection and sizing, and in working space design. These
differences stem from the ways in which the processing of foods differs from the processing of
industrial chemicals. Such differences occur because of the following considerations:
The storage life of foods is relatively limited and strongly affected by temperature, pH, water
activity, maturity, prior history, and initial microbial contamination levels.
Very high and verifiable levels of product safety and sterility have to be provided.
Foods are highly susceptible to microbial attack and insect and rodent infestation.
Fermentations are used in producing various foods and bio chemicals. Successful processing requires
the use of conditions, which ensure the dominance of desired strains of microorganisms growth or
activity.
Enzyme-catalyzed processes are used or occur in many cases. These, like microbial growth and
fermentation are very sensitive to temperature, pH, water activity and other environmental
conditions.
Many foods are still living organisms or bio chemically active long after harvest or slaughter.
In some cases foods (e.g. ripening cheeses) contain active living micro organisms, which induce
chemical transformations for long periods of time.
Crop-based food raw materials may only be available in usable form on a seasonal basis. Therefore,
plant design may involve the modelling of crop availability.
Food raw materials are highly variable and that variability is enhanced by the ageing of raw material
and uncontrollable variations in climatic conditions.
The biological and cellular nature and structural complexity of foods causes special heat-transfer,
mass-transfer and component separation problems.
Foods are frequently solid. Heat and mass-transfer problems in solids have to be created in ways
that are different than those used for liquid and gas streams. The kinetics of microbe and enzyme
inactivation during thermally induced sterilization and blanching and heat-transfer in the solids being
sterilized or blanched are strongly linked.
Food processing generates wastes with high BOD loads.
Foods are often chemically complex systems whose components tend to react with one another.
Certain types of reactions, e.g. Maillard reactions, oxidative rancidification, hydrolytic rancidification
and enzymatic browning tend to occur with a high degree of frequency.
The engineering properties of foods and biological material are less well known and more variable
than those of pure chemicals and simple mixtures of chemicals.
Vaguely defined sensory attributes often have to be preserved, generated or modified. These require
sensory testing. Raw material variation, minor processing changes and trace contaminants leached
from processing equipment and packages can often cause significant changes in these attributes.
Frequently, we do not have mechanistic bases for linking these attributes to processing conditions
and equipment design. Much current food engineering and food science research activity at
universities is designed to provide such linkages.
In the case of foods, prototype products have to be consumer tested so as to assure market
acceptability before plants for large scale production are built.
Mechanical working is sometimes used to induce desired textural changes. Examples include
kneading and sponge mixing during the making of bread, the calendaring of pastry dough, shearing
during extrusion texturization.
Packaging in small containers is often used or required; and strong-package-product interactions
exist. Packaging often requires care to maintain integrity of closure, reproducibility of fill elimination
of air from head spaces and prevention of subsequent moisture and oxygen transfer. Segregation
often causes problems in the packaging of powdered foods. Aseptic packaging is starting to be
widely used.
adoption of some new process /replacement of some existing equipment
modernization / automation of the existing facility
expansion of the plant capacity
relocating the existing plant at a new site because of new economic, social, legal or political factors