Test & measurement
HOW HYGIENIC AND SANITARY DESIGN POWERS EFFICIENCY ON THE LINE
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By Holger Schmidt, global industry manager Food & Beverage, Mettler- Toledo Product Inspection
t starts with something small. A single droplet of water left to pool inside a crevice. A crack too fine for the naked eye, but just wide enough to trap organic residue. One cleaning step skipped in a rush to get back online. Then come the consequences: a contamination alert. A product recall. A line shutdown. And suddenly, what looked like a minor design oversight becomes a multi-million-pound mistake. In food, beverage and pharmaceutical production, there is no room for shortcuts - yet many manufacturers still rely on equipment that is difficult to clean, prone to microbial build-up and costly to maintain. That is where hygienic design comes in. And while it is often framed as a compliance requirement, its real power lies in something far more valuable: operational efficiency. Let us explore how well-designed product inspection equipment can not only support public health and legal obligations, but also unlock smarter, leaner more resilient manufacturing.
MEETING STANDARDS WITHOUT LOSING SPEED
Today’s manufacturers are navigating a global tangle of standards. From Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-benchmarked schemes like the BRCGS and Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000), to the US FDA’s (Food & Drug Administration) Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) rules and the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) guidelines, hygienic design is no longer a niche requirement - it is central to how compliance is measured. Hygienic
design goes beyond surface-level standards; FDA 21CFR177 and EN 1935/2004 plus GB 4806 are regulations about the type of materials used that are intended for contact with food. Ingress Protection (IP) ratings such as IP65 or IP66 signify how well the equipment is protected against solids (i.e. dust) and liquids (i.e. water).
THE TRUE COST OF HYGIENIC DESIGN Hygienic design should also play a foundational role in developing a site’s Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) programme. It needs to be clear that using hygienically designed equipment is not simply about satisfying auditors; it is about producing safe, high-quality products as efficiently as possible. Production line equipment must be constantly cleaned and sterilised however costs increase in line with the more time, energy, water and detergents that are used. Product inspection equipment sits at the heart of this approach. Systems must support proper hygiene, traceability and contamination control - and they are often scrutinised during audits to confirm cleanability down to a microbiological level. But when equipment is designed for easy, consistent cleaning, meeting compliance requirements becomes less of a burden and more of a competitive advantage. It protects the consumer against potentially harmful product, streamlines operations, upholds product integrity and ultimately strengthens the bottom line.
CLEAN FASTER, RUN SMARTER Time spent cleaning is time lost in production and impacts the bottom line - but with the right design, cleaning becomes faster, more predictable and less resource-intensive, ultimately improving the Return on Investment (ROI). That’s where hygienic design delivers operational wins far beyond compliance. Whether a site uses Clean-in-Place (CIP) systems - where cleaning solutions circulate automatically through equipment - or Cleaning Out of Place (COP) methods that involve disassembly, or manual sanitisation, effective cleaning is fundamental. Equipment must allow for thorough sanitisation between runs to prevent
cross-contamination and minimise downtime. Ease of access is a cornerstone of hygienic design. Surfaces, components and joints must either be fully closed to prevent gaps or made large and open enough to be cleaned easily and effectively. Equipment that can be cleaned without extensive dismantling, or where parts can be quickly and intuitively removed, dramatically reduces cleaning time and improves reliability.
This has a direct impact on uptime. Less time spent on cleaning and validation means more time producing - especially important in facilities running multiple product SKUs or batches. Cleaning routines become more repeatable, less prone to error and easier to document. All of this is critical under GMP and other regulatory regimes, such as the GFSI guidelines or defined within a site’s own HACCP strategy.
In pharmaceutical settings, where manual cleaning is standard, design features like smooth welds, minimal crevices and angled surfaces can significantly cut operator workload and improve
August 2025 Instrumentation Monthly
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