HACCP flooring choice for White Rabbit Brewery

It was essential that the production area in the new White Rabbit Brewery in Geelong, Victoria, always looked fresh, inviting and unblemished, as visitors would be taking tours around the open-plan brewery.

The company installed a bright Coral Red, antimicrobial-enhanced, polyurethane coating in its brewery area to meet the site’s practical, hygienic and aesthetic requirements.

400 m² of both Flowfresh SR and Flowfresh Sealer from Flowcrete Australia’s HACCP International certified food-grade flooring range was installed within White Rabbit’s brewery. The bactericidal additive Polygiene is incorporated within every Flowfresh system, empowering it with the ability to eliminate up to 99.9% of bacteria in contact with the floor.

To assist other breweries in ensuring that their floors are able to maintain a high performance surface on which to safely and hygienically produce large quantities of the amber nectar, Flowcrete Australia has produced a white paper — Advantages of Polyurethane over Epoxy in Production Areas.

The white paper explores the pros and cons of epoxy resin and polyurethane systems, two of the most common types of brewery floors, examining how they fare when faced with specific demands and how they can be tailored to support the site’s daily operations.

Flowcrete Australia Managing Director Sean Tinsley said: “The brewery industry has to safely and effectively manage the large-scale and complex operations of a $4.3 billion industry, where 600 tonnes of domestically grown hops have to be turned into enough high-quality beer to meet 93% of the nation’s consumption.

“To achieve this requires facilities that can cope with exceptionally large volumes of produce and a high turnover rate. We’ve created our new white paper to help brewery professionals ensure that the floor beneath their feet is able to maintain an effective surface that will support the site’s activity safely, hygienically and for the long term.”

Cracked, broken or ailing surfaces can lead to contamination issues within a brewery, and the movement of bulky barrels, warm conditions, heavy equipment and the potential spillages of corrosive by-products can all cause an insufficiently robust coating to fail.

To help specify a stout floor that is up to the task, the white paper explains how polyurethane flooring materials can be used to create finishes able to withstand whatever the beer production process can throw at it. The seamless, impervious nature of polyurethane floors combined with the ability to incorporate coving and drainage also means that brewery operators can quickly and easily wash away the grains, grime and dirt that accumulate during a busy working day.

In the white paper, brewery industry professionals can also find out about the criteria that floors need to provide in order to meet regulations such as the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code or to implement an effective Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) Food Safety Management System.

The white paper highlights the importance of choosing HACCP standard building materials that will assure regulatory bodies, clients and consumers that the beer has been produced within a facility that adheres to the highest hygiene principles.

To find out more about the advantages of polyurethane flooring materials within a brewery environment visit http://flowcreteaustralia.com.au/media/6763/flowcrete-australia-advantages-of-polyurethane-over-epoxy-in-production-areas-july-2016.pdf.