Food processing and packaging clients have long considered their floors to be as much a part of daily production as any other piece of processing equipment within the plant.
Hygienic, sanitary floor finishes are critical to a company’s success, assisting with contamination control strategies between wash cycles and as such a huge priority in building design. Today, the wine industry is following suit.
Everything in the cellar, from the walls down, ultimately ends up on the floor; and without good hygiene, it will eventually end up in your barrel.
A winery can have the cleanest walls, tanks and employees; but if the floors are not clean, the product can be compromised.
Unprotected concrete floors are subject to constant erosion from forklift traffic and corrosive acids in high humidity environments and suffer impact damage from barrels, barrel racks and other processing equipment.
Much worse, concrete is, by nature, porous. Combine this with spalling or flaking, cracking or pitting, and soon concrete becomes a wonderful environment to accommodate the growth of bacteria – particularly around drainage channels.
Chances are the next time you visit your local wine estate or vineyard, you’ll encounter specialist polymer flooring systems throughout the facility in order to counteract the scenario described above.
You’ll find these systems not only behind the scenes where the wine is fermenting or aging, but also in the tasting rooms where it’s being consumed.
Polymer floors are undoubtedly the most effective way to ensure hygiene, durability and worker safety with the winery with their biggest advantage being sanitation.
Decorative systems is also making an impression in front-of-house bars and tasting lounges where the eye-catching metallic swirled floor finish serves as a luxury backdrop for an afternoon degustation.
Flowcrete Americas’ offers a complete package of specialist polymer and antimicrobial floor finishes designed to cater for all areas within the winery including ISO 22196 certified antimicrobial systems that prevent the growth and spread of bacteria by up to 99.9% between wash cycles as well as hygienic wall coatings and coving mortars.
Download Flowcrete’s Winery Floor Plan and Specialist Flooring Systems for Wineries Guide.
For more information email thefoodteam@flowcrete.com
