Case study supplied by GB Belting – Solid Plastic Belts
Most food touches a conveyor belt at some time and the two most critical belt related process issues facing the food processing industries are bacteriological and plastic contamination which can cause both major damage to a manufacturer’s reputation, and impact greatly on their customers; the losses can be serious to all parties.
Plastic modular belts have the potential for hygiene problems with the huge number of gaps, splits and pins. Every broken module could be considered a missing a piece of plastic. Modular belts can look clean but remove a pin and you will see the dirt on the pin and in the holes.
Plied conveyor belts can quickly deteriorate if they aren’t maintained properly. The laminate can come off and absorb the product through hydrolysis between the plies. This is impossible to clean. Plied conveyor belts can also shed plastic when they come into contact with other parts of the conveyor.
The food processing industry needs to produce food on belts that are quick and easy to clean, that keep plastics shedding to an absolute minimum, that aren’t permeable, that don’t hold on to potential contaminants and reduce labour costs.
GB Belting carry these solid belts in stock, and we can engineer them to any requirement you may require.
These belts eliminate these contamination issues, they can also be retro-fitted to most conveyors with little or no adaption. They are completely solid with no welded drive teeth or reinforcements that could contaminate your product.
It should be pointed out though, that both modular and plied belting have many applications where they excel and provide the best solution for the job in hand.