Meat + Poultry - July 2005 - 48

Conveyors

migrate out of the product, and it won't
wash off or wear away, so it is there for
the lifetime of the product," she says.
"We have never had one wear out,
and we've had product sit on the shelf
for three or four years," says Andersen.
"We continually test it and it's always
there. In a food plant, the belt will wear
out, be damaged and fail before the antimicrobial additive is ever depleted."
Antimicrobials are regulated by the
Environmental Protection Agency,

Even conveyor belts that have antimicrobial
additives need to be cleaned on a regular
schedule.
Photo courtesy of Intralox

notes Hall. The allowable claims for
them are limited to microorganisms
that cause stains, discoloration, odors
and deterioration to the product. Thus,
no claims can be made regarding the
safety of food products processed in
plants using antimicrobial belts.
Additionally, a built-in antimicrobial
does not affect food quality, Hall notes.
"We conducted an F.D.A. leaching
study, and it has no affect on the food
products themselves," she adds. The
fact that antimicrobials do not migrate
to food products is good and bad, she
says. It means that it is not going to influence the integrity of food products,
but it's not going to prevent foodborne
illness either. "If you are running contaminated product, it will still be contaminated," she says.
An ancillary benefit to using antimicrobial belting, according to Hall,
52

MEAT&POULTRY

July 2005

is that plants may not have to replace
their belts as often. "Bacteria can cause
premature discoloration to product, so
they may have an instance where product is perfectly useable but appearance
may cause them to be replaced sooner,"
she says.
Intralox, Harahan, La., offers all of
its plastic modular belts with a silverbased inorganic antimicrobial additive.
Alphasan, which was created by the
Milliken Chemical Co., has full regulatory approval for food contact applications. "Laboratory tests have proven
Alphasan to be effective against more
organisms than Microban, an organic
additive based on the chemical triclosan," says Lisa Boe, marketing communications strategist with Intralox. "It
also inhibits the formation of biofilm,
which can protect organisms for the
antimicrobial agent."
Jeff Walker, technical manager of
packaging equipment at Cryovac, a
division of Sealed Air Corp., Saddle
Brook, N.J., estimates that about 40
percent of the conveyor belts it sells
to meat and poultry processors have
built-in antimicrobials. He says there is
still not a big demand for these belts as
there is not a lot of information available about how well they work.
Flat belting
A quarter of a century ago, flat belts
were much more common in meat
and poultry plants. Fabric reinforced
plastic or rubber belts were used on
pulleys to convey products; however,
they caused many maintenance issues. After virtually every washdown,
maintenance staff would have to adjust
the tension of these belts so they would
not slip, says Barry Whitman, vice
president of market development for
Mol Industries, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Many maintenance hours were spent
on slippage.
Eventually modular plastic belting
was developed, which alleviated these
maintenance issues because these belts
were sprocket driven. However, issues
such as food safety and cleanliness
were not at the forefront then as they

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are now, Whitman observes. "So over
the years, as the cleanliness issues have
moved to the forefront, now we are seeing plants have to take modular belts
off of conveyors to soak them," he says.
"All of a sudden they are reintroducing
more maintenance time again, because
you can't deep clean these without
taking them off and soaking them."
Because of all the hinges in modular
belting, sanitation is the No. 1 problem, Whitman adds.
During the past year, Mol Industries has introduced ThermoDrive, a
sprocket-driven, extruded homogenous
plastic flat belt with no fiber reinforcement. The success of the belt is the fact
it has no hinges, says Whitman. The
flat belt is a drop-in replacement for
plastic modular belting, he adds. And
any accessories for modular belting
can be done with ThermoDrive.
Additionally, the new flat belt is 60
percent lighter in weight than modular
belting. "It means, at the plant level, it
is easier to handle," he says. "People
can move it around and lift it up very
easily to clean and spray underneath
it."
It is also beneficial to the original
equipment manufacturers because
they can go with a lighter duty, lighter
weight conveyor, Whitman notes.
"When the belt is running over your
conveyor you are not causing as much
wear, and not as much vibration. So
you can build a conveyor, if you are
an O.E.M., with less bracing and more
open areas, which lends itself to be a
more cleanable conveyor."
Most importantly, however, according to Whitman, is that ThermoDrive
beltings start saving plants money as
soon as they are installed. "We did an
R.O.I. on a large pork plant, and if they
changeover the entire plant to our belts,
it looked at saving a little over a million
dollars just in their first year. Water usage is humungous-1.5 million gallons
of water is used per day. We looked at
cutting more than $600,000 of savings
in water alone."
Mol Industries has looked at antimicrobials for its belting, but Whit-

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Meat + Poultry - July 2005

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