Why Choose Food Grade Flooring?

f you run a busy restaurant, butcher, brewery, deli, food storage facility, or any other place that prepares and handles food, having suitable flooring can determine whether you stay in business.

Not having suitable flooring cannot only be a health hazard for your staff but can also cause food-borne diseases, hefty fines and potential closures.

Your commercial food flooring must address several safety issues, such as slip, chemical, and abrasion resistance. Eliminating mold and mildew growth opportunities is also a critical factor in food-safe flooring.

Your commercial kitchen floor should also be easy to clean and easy to maintain, requiring minimal maintenance to prevent your facility from being closed for extended periods of time.

Being easy to clean will reduce the time your staff spends cleaning the floors and give them more time to focus on critical tasks.

FDA Approved Floor Coatings For Commercial Kitchens

Inspected facilities require USDA and FDA-approved floor coatings for any food processing or storage facilities. These floors need to be sanitary and hygienic.

For your commercial kitchen floor to be considered an FDA-approved floor coating, the floor must meet these requirements:

A joint-free seamless finish

Water-resistant

Coved at all junctions

Crack and erosion resistance durability standards

Along with the FDA, USDA-approved floor coatings must have a crack-free, seamless, smooth finish.

When your floor has cracks, exposed joints, worn grout lines or gaps, bacteria, mold, and other contaminants can easily get trapped, developing a breeding ground for food-borne diseases and unpleasant smells in your commercial kitchen.

Food-safe floor coatings must also have a minimal odor to prevent contaminating products with off-putting smells or tastes.

A wide variety of FDA-approved floor coatings are available, but two options stand out as the best solutions when choosing industrial food-grade flooring.

Urethane Mortar, Also Known As Polyurethane Cement

Urethane coatings hold up to heavy foot traffic, are chemical and abrasion-resistant, and are non-toxic. This combination of durability and safety makes it the ideal solution for food and beverage facilities. These coatings are long-lasting, slip-resistant, and easy to clean.

They provide a non-porous barrier that ensures your floor will not absorb harmful bacteria.

Urethane coatings require minimal downtime for installation.

Most food businesses experience less than one day of lost production time, and most of the time, the floors are installed after hours to minimize downtime even more.

100% Solids Epoxy

100% solids epoxy is a great option for solid-color epoxy floors. These epoxy floors are ideal for high-traffic areas, garages, warehouse floors, and other areas where health and safety requirements are necessary.

If you want a long-lasting, hard-wearing, and solid-color floor, 100% Solids Epoxy Flooring is worth the investment. Epoxy flooring can be blended with different materials to address specific commercial and industrial food-grade flooring issues. Problematic acids and alkalis are not an issue for 100% solids epoxy. Epoxy food-safe flooring stands up to abrasive cleaning products and chemicals as well.

Epoxy Coving For Commercial Kitchens

What exactly is coving? Coving is the half-round that runs around the perimeter of the floor-to-wall junction. Usually, the distance between the wall and the floor is 4 inches (100mm). Epoxy coving is used around the perimeter to make cleaning easier and prevent fluids from collecting in the corners, where bacteria can thrive.

In most cases, you have two choices. Epoxy coving or aluminum prefabricated coving are the best options. We recommend epoxy coving because it is produced on the spot and hardens up to the wall/floor junction, meaning it's solid and won't allow liquid to get in behind. When aluminum coving is bonded after the floor has been laid, there is a gap between the aluminum coving and the floor-to-wall junction. This space will trap water and other dirty liquids over time, causing bacteria to proliferate and a stench to develop.

What To Look For When Choosing A Food Grade Flooring

Choosing the correct food-safe flooring can be daunting. There are a few important things to consider when choosing the most suitable flooring for your food facility.

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1. Does the flooring meet your state's minimum food safety requirements?

2. Does the flooring have anti-microbial properties?

3. Is the flooring moisture tolerant?

4. Can it withstand chemicals, animal fats, acids, thermal cycles and alkalis?

5. Does the flooring provide a seamless finish?

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