Door Selection, Hygiene Zones and Cleaning Regimes in Food Production
Published:
Publisher: Alkur Kapı Sistemleri A.Ş.
Summary
In food and beverage production the door is part of the hygiene plan. Three things govern: how the passage between zones is separated, how the door is opened (a button to touch or a touch-free sensor), and whether the surface stands up to the cleaning regime. Sealing here is not only an energy question but one of dust and pest control.
At food and beverage facilities, door selection has as much to do with the hygiene plan as with production flow. The same door carries forklift traffic, separates two hygiene zones and goes through the daily cleaning routine. This article lists what to look at when choosing doors in food production. Temperature separation and the cold store side are covered in a separate article.
Zone separation: where does the door sit?
In food facilities, areas are separated by hygiene level: goods-in, preparation, processing, packing and despatch. The door is the boundary between these zones and does two jobs at once: it allows passage while limiting the transfer of air, dust and particles between zones.
This makes the door’s open time critical on internal passages. A high-speed PVC door reaches 1.5 m/s with an inverter, which noticeably shortens total open time on a corridor crossed hundreds of times a day. Where a pressure difference is maintained between zones, the door closing quickly is a precondition for sustaining it.
Who opens the door, and how?
In hygiene zones, touching a button means a shared contact surface. That is the real reason for touch-free activation:
Hand sensor gives a dry contact as the hand approaches; no contact needed. The housing is stainless steel or white plastic and resists isopropyl alcohol and standard disinfectants.
A detection range of 5 – 15 cm is set deliberately short: passing staff or carried goods opening the door needlessly disturbs the pressure difference and the zone separation.
Radar or active infrared sensor is used where general approach detection is needed; preferred on main corridors with continuous forklift traffic.
Loop detector is used on doors with vehicle traffic only (despatch, goods-in).
More than one activation can be wired in parallel on the same door: a hand sensor inside, radar outside.
Standing up to the cleaning regime
In food facilities the door is part of surface cleaning and, at times, pressure washing. Material selection is therefore as much about cleanability as durability.
On HPVC doors the curtain is 900 g/m² panama-weave PVC, and its flat surface suits regular cleaning. On the structure, the roll type uses 80 × 80 mm aluminium uprights and the folding type 200 × 200 mm galvanised steel. On sectional doors the panel surface is hot-dip galvanised with a polyester coating.
In areas where cleaning chemicals are used heavily, it is worth sharing which disinfectant family you use when selecting the door; some chemicals noticeably affect the life of seals and coatings.
Sealing here is a hygiene matter, not an energy one
Every gap around the door is a route for dust, flies and pests. The bottom seal closing fully onto the floor, the perimeter seals making contact at every point when closed, and the inter-panel seals being sound are all items checked in a hygiene audit too. Any point where light shows through with the door closed is a point that passes particles.
Safety equipment and staff traffic
In food production there are people around the doors continuously, which makes safety equipment basic rather than optional. A photocell protects the closing path and edge protection acts on contact, and the two do not replace one another: a low object below the beam line, or someone approaching from outside the beam path, may go unseen by the photocell, and there the edge is the last line.
On automatic pedestrian doors, closing speed is limited to 70 percent of opening speed as a deliberate safety setting. Leaf weight limits also change with the arrangement: 150 kg on a single leaf, 120 + 120 kg on a double, 4 × 60 kg on a telescopic frame.
Documentation and conformity
On lines under HACCP and GMP control, the certification of the equipment used goes into the audit file. The dock shelter curtain conforms to DIN 53352 / 53356 / 75200, and its anti-static, stain-resistant construction governs on these lines. On the door side, conformity to EN 13241-1 is sought on the complete door in working order; components having been tested individually does not substitute for a system certificate.
What to establish, in order
- Which two hygiene zones does the door separate?
- Is a pressure difference maintained between them?
- Who uses the passage: staff, forklifts, or both?
- Should activation be touch-free, and on which side?
- What is the cleaning regime; which chemicals, and is there pressure washing?
- Is the line under HACCP or GMP control, and what goes into the audit file?
Send us the zone plan and the passage profile and we can work out together which door belongs where.
