Overcoming the challenges of fire safety in the food and beverage industry

Intense animal farming for meat production not only involves livestock grazing in fields to feed them. In winter or on much larger agricultural facilities, animals are usually fed with dried foods, such as hay or grain. This is typically stored in barns or warehouse constructions which are open to weather conditions like the hot summer sun or wind gusts. Just like forest fires, one spark or continuous smoldering can result in a wide area burning to the ground in minutes as the dry materials are perfect for kindling. Total damage on such a site would seriously impact the business costs and supply chain for meat production.

Industrial-scale production is the only way to provide enough meat for the huge demand of wholesalers and supermarket chains. Overhead electrical conveyors and belts are in constant motion to prepare livestock for human consumption, from slaughtering to packaging. This creates high temperatures, and overheating can lead to smoldering or ignition. Similarly, meat production facilities house large refrigeration systems to maintain the freshness of goods. These can also overheat and risk leaking ammonia if they are damaged, plus any ammonia stored on site is at risk of combustion if exposed to high temperatures. Chlorine bleach used to sanitize equipment can spread a fire much faster due to its oxidizing properties. The combination of all these factors, in an industrial construction with thousands of workers, makes a rapid response to fire essential.

The global donut industry is predicted to reach revenues of 55 billion USD by 2024 – it’s big business.* This means, however, that worldwide there are bakeries and factories storing and using mass quantities of dusty, dry ingredients, such as flour, sugar and powdered flavorings. This dust can combust or assist the rapid spread of fires. Massive quantities of oil are used to fry the dough at extremely high temperatures. This heat is maintained well after the cooked products are removed and ovens and other machinery are switched off, posing high risks of ignition, especially when left unattended. Additional heat is generated by the constant activity of conveyor belts, pick-and-place machinery, and personnel working on site. Power sources, such as electricity to run machines and lighting and gas water boilers, further add to the dangers of a fire consuming entire sites which produce sweet treats.

*Source: Statista

Beer, wine and spirits, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, soda – not everyone likes to drink just water day and night. But it’s not just the business of beverages that has exploded over the decades – the risk of real physical explosions has also increased exponentially. Pure ethanol stored in massive tanks in breweries to produce grain-based beer and spirits is a highly flammable substance. Sugar, plus ground or powdered tea, coffee and milk products produce enough dust to make them extremely combustible. Outdoor storage in high temperatures exacerbates this risk. Carbonated soda and energy drinks comprise similarly explosive powdered ingredients. They are typically packaged in high-pressure aluminum cans which are also a hazard for fire and combustion and emit harmful fumes if they catch fire.

Factories producing frozen foods, like pizza and desserts, use industrial cold storage units as warehouses for their goods. Despite extremely low temperatures, there are fire risks due to the dry environment combined with electricity, on-site motion and chemicals used for some freezing processes. This poses two challenges for fire safety: monitoring at varying heights within a large space and the provision of fire detection equipment that will function and respond reliably in sub-zero temperatures. In addition, a later stage of the manufacturing process is the packaging of foods before transport and onward distribution. Therefore, flat-packed cardboard boxes with logos, nutritional details and photos of their contents are stacked in large warehouses, often adjacent to the main factory buildings, ready for assembly and packing. Production facilities for dry goods, such as cookies and crackers, similarly rely on a steady supply of card-based packaging to sell their products. One flame in a storage space for these perfect kindling materials would result in a devastating fire if it were not detected and extinguished instantly. A lack of branded cartons and boxes would halt the logistics of finished products, meaning supermarkets’ supplies and their sales would be negatively impacted, or they would find alternative suppliers, creating a loss and storage bottleneck for the production business.

Not all fire safety solutions operate reliably in very low temperatures which means they cannot be counted on to generate alerts in the case of smoldering or sparks. When a fire really spreads it might already be too late to save valuable business assets, including freezers and food stocks – which will not only be defrosted but would be irretrievably damaged and unfit for delivery and sale. AVIOTEC works just as effectively down to temperatures of -20°C as it does in higher temperatures. It is therefore perfect for food production, packaging and storage companies, regardless of whether they house large freezers or large ovens and conveyors – or both – on site.

When a devastating fire took hold of a processing plant at Richetti SpA, a frozen and chilled food production and co-packing company, their safety managers had to rethink security and fire protection solutions for the entire company. The fundamental need was to be able to respond instantly to any sign of fire and prevent total damage from occurring ever again. As Richetti, like any food or beverage production plant, own spaces not only for production but also for mass storage of packaging materials, a solution was needed which worked flexibly across diverse environments and conditions. The efficient, well-trained algorithms within the AVIOTEC technology improves fire safety and reduces risks to business continuity on industrial-scale processing and storage sites. Richetti SpA have been satisfied AVIOTEC customers for the past few years and appreciate the business benefits of both indoor and outdoor surveillance in case of fire.