Supermarket Perimeter - January 2019 - 67

FOOD SAFETY

Good building design must consider the entire supply chain and how to increase speed to market.

says, if it "serves the process in a
food-safe manner."
One area of food safety that
Stellar has been focused on more
recently is bringing food safety
design into what Allsup calls
"employee welfare areas." A few
examples:
Secure entrances - Food
safety begins the moment employees step into the building,
not just the production ﬂoor.
Some facilities opt to have a
security guard and/or turnstile
at the entrance to control access
to the facility and set a serious
tone. Stellar also recommends
controlling access to areas by requiring a card swipe, especially to
restrict employees who work on
the raw side of the facility from
accessing the ready-to-eat side,
and vice-versa.
Break rooms and bathrooms
- Employees who work on the
raw side and ready-to-eat side
should have their own separate
break rooms and bathrooms.
Stellar also design facilities
with consideration for trash

ﬂows from these rooms to the
dumpster in order to minimize
potential contamination to the
plant ﬂoor.
Plant visitors - Visitors to
the facility are a crucial consideration, especially because these
guests are likely not familiar with
the food safety routines and standards required in a food plant. For
some clients, Stellar has designed
a holding area or vestibule where
visitors can wait while an employee leaves the working zone,
de-gowns and sanitizes before
meeting them. Many facilities
also include an area for training
(whether live instruction or a video) to explain the rules to visitors
and what they will be wearing to
ensure food safety is maintained.

are built within the facility, with
packaged refrigeration, modular equipment is built off site,
mounted on a structural steel
base, then delivered to the plant

as a self-contained, "plug-andplay" system, Allsup says.
"Not only are these systems safer than their traditional
counterparts, but they also come
with advantages in terms of installation, ﬁeld labor savings and
schedule savings," he says.
Since you don't have to
send a refrigeration team to a
job site to construct the system,
opting for a packaged refrigeration system can save an owner
25 to 30 percent in labor costs,
Allsup says. And the process of
assembling a packaged refrigeration system is faster and more
efficient than traditional methods,
which can reduce the overall
project timeline.
The packaged refrigeration
option is especially attractive
for companies looking to retroﬁt
an existing building rather than
build a new one, Allsup says.
And if they ever decide to lease
the building, they also have the
ﬂexibility to take the modular
refrigeration system with them
when they move.

Packaged refrigeration
Packaged refrigeration is one of
the biggest trends in food plant
production, says Todd Allsup,
vice president of sales, food
group, for Jacksonville, Florida-based design-build ﬁrm Stellar.
Unlike traditional systems that

To ensure the highest food safety standards are met in its designs,
The Austin Co. has food scientists on staff.

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