You don’t need to build a brand new facility to meet modern-day food safety standards. The reality is that most companies don’t have the budget to build from scratch as often as they’d like, but that doesn’t mean your decades-old plant can’t be a shining example of food safety.

Let’s look at five things you can do now to ensure your older facility is up to today’s food safety standards.

A well-developed sanitary plant design takes a proactive approach to keeping pathogens and contamination at bay.

The ultimate key to success is designing a plant that is linear so that product moves seamlessly downstream through each of the below steps without interruption.

Improper product flow can be detrimental to your food plant’s operations in more ways than one. These inefficiencies can cost money, waste time, jeopardize food quality and introduce safety hazards on the production floor.

A number of food and beverage facilities have been utilizing clean-in-place (CIP) systems for years. It's the method of cleaning processing equipment and piping without dissassembling it. While most of us already know what CIP is, when was the last time you performed a thorough audit of your system? 

There were a total of 440 recalls of FDA and USDA regulated food products in 2017. The single leading cause of recalls last year? The presence of undeclared allergens and the misbranding of products. So how can you reduce the risk of a costly recall and avoid being a part of this year’s statistic? Let’s look at a few things your business can do from the plant floor to the label design process.

Stellar, a Jacksonville engineering and construction company, has begun renovations on new floors, fresh paint, updated light fixtures at Shades of Green, which is located across from Disney's Polynesian Village Resort and adjacent to Disney's Palm Golf Course. The company and Shades of Green declined to say how much the project will cost but the work will be finished on the 283-room wing in August.

In our industry, the best project outcomes require a great deal of planning. When it comes to greenfield and renovation projects, that means formulating a manufacturing analysis and a strategic plan. Before investing in any changes, however, a crucial step is understanding the status quo: How is your facility performing?, How efficient are your processes?, What can be optimized?

The Jacksonville-based international construction company, Stellar, has recently completed construction on a 636,000-square-foot facility for Faribault Foods, a subsidiary of La Costeña.

Are you looking to expand your facility? Retrofit an existing structure? Renovate an older plant? Today’s technology makes these projects more efficient and more accurate than ever before. 3D laser scanning — and an AEC firm that knows how to leverage it effectively — are must-haves for modern-day food plant projects.

The demand for gluten-free products isn’t just a passing trend. In fact, the gluten-free foods market is projected to be valued at $7.59 billion by 2020. Plus, researchers have noted a rise in celiac disease rates in recent years — just more evidence that the need for GF products isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Before you begin producing gluten-free products in your facility, however, consider these principles to ensure you cater to this growing market safely, efficiently and effectively.

US-based chicken producer Bell & Evans has made an investment of more than $260m to develop a new poultry processing facility in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. A ground-breaking ceremony for the facility was held in November 2017, and completion is scheduled for early-2020.

How do you establish trust with project partners?

Speaking with Baking & Snack magazine, Enrico L. Chua, an engineering manager at Stellar with more than 16 years of experience in designing food processing and distribution facilities, explained the steps manufacturers need to take before beginning construction in China. 

When it comes to green building, LEED v4 is the new standard. As of October 31, 2016, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) will only accept new LEED registrations under LEED v4. Although the registration date was extended, the last day projects can submit for v3 certification — the sunset date — is still June 30, 2021.