An industrial floor cleaning machine is only as good as the industrial cleaning chemicals you put in it. If you’re not putting a suitable cleaning solution into your machine, how can you expect the best possible results? Plus, unbeknownst to yourself, you may be damaging the machine and shortening its lifecycle.
When working with food and drink products, it’s important to maintain a regular warehouse cleaning routine. Otherwise, you run the risk of cross-contamination and destroying a wide range of your products. Not only will this cost the business to replace the stock, but it’ll also cause other inconveniences within operations.
This post will outline the importance of sticking to a regimented cleaning process, the various hazards that the food and drink logistics industry poses to workers, and the ideal industrial cleaning chemicals to help improve business efficiency.
We’ll cover:
- The Importance of a Regular Cleaning Process
- The Main Hazards in Food and Beverage Logistics Warehouses
- The Essential Industrial Cleaning Chemicals
The Importance of a Regular Cleaning Process
Adherence to Food Hygiene Best Practices
When working closely with food and drink products, by law, you need to adhere to food hygiene best practices and regulations. Sticking to these strict guidelines ensures that your products are in the best possible condition and are always fit for human consumption.
A major part of food hygiene is the cleanliness of your workplace. Dirty workplaces, particularly the floor, can encourage the growth of harmful bacteria that could make somebody seriously ill should they consume them. Not only that, but harmful bacteria can pose serious threats to your workforce when handling the products.
Keeping Your Workforce Safe
Food and drink distribution centres are hazardous environments. They’re busy, with footfall and vehicle traffic whizzing around at all times. Due to the busyness, hazards are maximised, so if you don’t introduce a regular cleaning process it can heighten these hazards even further. Not cleaning your workplace properly can put team members’ health at risk.
Spillages, general footfall dirt and vehicle oil are all common slip hazards that can be found in food and drink distribution centres. With team members working at a high pace throughout their shift, the danger of slipping on these hazards becomes very apparent. By regularly using an industrial cleaning machine, you can clean up any threats to your team members’ health and keep your floors squeaky clean.
Uphold High Standards Throughout the Business
As a food and drink distribution centre, it’s important to withhold high standards right the way through your business. We’re talking from the ground up – literally! There’s no point claiming to be an efficient business if you’re boasting a warehouse that’s not been cleaned up to standard – especially the floor.
If you have a dirty warehouse floor, that may as well reflect the rest of the business. There’s always room for improvement if you’re operating with a dirty floor. It may be slowing you down or increasing the chance of accidents, which may, in turn, contribute towards the level of accidents that happen in the workplace.
The Main Hazards in Food and Beverage Logistics Warehouses
As with any warehouses, food and drink distribution centres are busy working environments. Busy traffic, heavy machinery and general hazards all pose a threat to team members daily. It’s important that as a business, you take care of these hazards and reduce the risks for your workers – especially if you want to get the most out of them.
Slips, trips and falls are the most common workplace accident – so, you need to make sure that the floor is impeccable. Otherwise, you’ll be maximising the risk of one of your team members taking a tumble. Your team doesn’t deserve to go to work every day and worry about taking a fall and hurting themselves, do they?
Plus, they’ll then be more cautious when making their way around the warehouse. This can lead to a “go-slow” and may have a direct impact on productivity and output levels. By taking care of the various hazards in the warehouse, your workforce will feel far more comfortable at work and you’ll find that they naturally work a lot harder too.
In distribution centres, team members are expected to handle heavy machinery. But can you be certain that you’ve adequately trained them to successfully operate the machinery? If you haven’t, then they’re at risk of causing an accident. Accidents in warehouses aren’t your typical cut or scratch either, they can result in limb amputation or even fatalities.
That’s only two of the potential threats in warehouses – others include:
- Physical strain.
- Falling objects.
- Loading and unloading deliveries.
- Harmful bacteria.
The Essential Industrial Cleaning Chemicals
HDC-19
This industrial-strength chemical was originally designed to help tackle the spread of bacteria and viruses throughout working environments. It’s the perfect solution to rid your workplace of any potentially forming bacteria – which is ideal for food and drink distribution centres.
It’s proven to be used on all surfaces too, so you needn’t worry about not being able to cover everything. By cleaning and sanitising all in one method, you’re streamlining your cleaning processes and saving time. It’s most effective when using spray, wipe and mop methods – but it can also be used for industrial floor cleaning.
The main benefits of HDC-19 are:
- It’s effective at higher dilutions.
- Easily and gently cuts through heavily soiled and dirty surfaces and floors.
- Doesn’t contain any perfume or dye.
- Safe on paintwork, metal and various surfaces.
- Effective in hard and soft waters.
- Contains a powerful antibacterial sanitation agent.
HDC-20
HDC-20 is the perfect bulk cleaning chemical for scrubber dryers. Are you not seeing the potential results that you expected from your machine? Well, if you’re not using HDC-20, that’s probably why! This heavy-duty chemical tackles grease, oil, coolant and any other operational dirt with ease.
After all, you want to use chemicals to produce the best possible results. We can’t stress how important it is that your floor is immaculate in food and drink distribution centres. Food hygiene is imperative, your suppliers won’t be very happy if they feel your standards aren’t up to scratch. This could lead them to pull their products from your stores and your reputation being damaged.
The main features of HDC-20 are:
- Available in concentrate – takes up less storage space and lasts longer.
- 205L Barrel makes 16,400L of HDC20 – the solution dilutes 80 parts water to 1 part concentrate.
- The alkaline formula is kind to your machine – won’t corrode or damage internal seals and brass parts.
- Refills average ride-on machine 65 times.
- Leaves floors clean, dry and with a slip-free finish – safer for your staff and visitors.
Find the Perfect Machine With Beta Solutions
As we’ve mentioned, finding the right industrial floor cleaning machine is important for the success of your business. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to choosing the right machine for your company’s individual needs and requirements. It can be pretty daunting when you’re starting to look for your perfect machine, we know.
To help you with your decision, we’ve created a free Ebook that outlines the importance of these machines in the food and drink industry as a whole. Download your free copy today for everything you need to know. From industry tips and useful guidance to machine recommendations, it’s all in there to help you base your decision around.
