There are thousands of slip-and-fall accidents in various industries, including the food and beverage industry. According to the National Safety Council, slip-and-falls are among the most prevalent causes of accidents and days away from work, with over 674,100 cases between 2021 and 2022.
Among the industries where slips and falls occur with prevalence is the food processing industry. Food processing plants are hotbeds of moisture and grease, which often results in workers losing their footing.
Because surfaces in food processing plants become slippery over time, there’s a growing need for slip-resistant flooring. This is where solutions like anti-slip floor coatings come in.
Easy to install and maintain, anti-slip flooring solutions result in fewer accidents and injuries. As a result, plants become safer and more productive, enabling food companies to raise productivity and their bottom lines.
Learn more about the power of slip-resistant flooring and how to implement them in your food processing plant.
The challenges in food processing plants
Slippery surfaces are present in many workplaces, but they’re especially prevalent in food processing plants. The flooring in these facilities often consists of food-grade epoxy flooring, which often becomes slippery due to grease, fat, oil, and moisture accumulation.
Grease and moisture aren’t the only reasons that flooring becomes slippery. Over time, wear and tear from fork trucks and traffic cause epoxy flooring to lose its traction, resulting in slippery surfaces that become safety hazards.
Because of slippery epoxy flooring, roughly 30 in 10,000 food processing employees are victims of slips and falls. This figure outnumbers those you’d find in the manufacturing sector.
Understanding slip-resistant flooring
Slip-resistant flooring materials and coatings have abrasive properties. These properties are effective against various liquids, resulting in anti-slip floors.
Researchers perform a battery of tests on these slip-resistant materials and surfaces before using them indoors. For benchmarking, anti-slip standards set by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) are the measuring sticks for tests.
There are three tests flooring materials must pass before indoor use. These tests (each with a different friction value corresponding to a liquid) measure the traction of flooring against different wetting liquids. To pass these tests, slip-resistant flooring materials must meet or surpass the minimum friction values of 0.42, 0.43, and 0.60.
Passing all three tests is a strong indicator that a material or coating is effective for use as slip-resistant flooring.
The role of industrial-grade flooring coatings in providing slip resistance
More food processing plants are recognizing the critical role slip-resistant flooring plays in workplace safety. This is why urethane, MMA, and polyurea coatings have risen to prominence within the industry.
These coatings are at par with the ANSI’s anti-slip standards as they exhibit abrasion and traction against a variety of wetting liquids. Not only do these coatings prevent slips in work processing plants but they’re also easy to install for many plant owners and managers.
The Rio-Crete Urethane Cement
Our Rio-Crete Urethane Cement is one of our most widely used slip-resistant flooring products and it boasts unrivaled thermal shock resistance and moisture mitigation, making it the ideal slip-resistant flooring solution for food processing plants and commercial kitchens.
The Rio-Crete Urethane Cement is also easy to install. Its chemical-resistant topcoat can go atop various base layers or sheets, including green concrete and 16/30 mesh silica sand. The result is a tough matte finish layer that boasts maximum impact, abrasion, and moisture resistance.
Steps to achieve slip-resistant flooring in food processing plants with industrial-grade coatings
Whether it’s with the Rio-Crete Urethane Cement or our industry-leading Methyl Methacrylate Top Coat, achieving slip-resistant flooring is a straightforward process. All you need to do is follow these steps.
1. Prepare the existing floor
Floor preparation involves decontamination, shot blasting, and grinding.
Decontamination requires scrubbing and pressure-washing your selected flooring area. You must do this is to remove surface contaminants that otherwise result in a sub-par coating finish.
From here, you subject your floor surface to shot blasting and grinding. These are among the most critical aspects of surface preparation and ensure that your surfaces bond well with your industrial-grade flooring coating.
2. Apply your selected slip-resistant coating
Once your surface is ready, you’re now ready to apply your chosen slip-resistant coating. When choosing a coating, select one that easily assimilates with your food processing plant’s floors. Because of the nature of food processing, food safety must also be among your criteria when selecting flooring coatings.
Right away, the ideal flooring coatings for the task are our slip-resistant floorings, including our Rio-Crete Urethane Cement.
After you’ve identified your flooring coating, plan where you’ll apply it. As you scan your prepped area, ensure that you apply an adequate amount on high-traffic areas on your processing plant’s floor.
3. Maintenance: prolonging your new slip-resistant flooring’s life and effectiveness
You must maintain your slip-resistant floors by sweeping and vacuuming daily. Doing so is a must for keeping your floors clean and continually slip resistant long-term.
Case study
Here’s a case study that proves the effectiveness of our flooring solutions in food processing facilities.
Nationwide food retailer gets flooring upgrade
One of our projects was for a retailer with hundreds of stores across the country. Each store had food preparation areas, as well as delis, bakeries, and areas that receive frequent foot, trolley, and dolly traffic.
With traffic in these areas lasting 12 to 14 hours each day, the floors began to show signs of wear and tear. As a result, the affected floors grew more porous, difficult to clean, and unsafe.
As a solution, we stripped all flooring in these stores to replace them with our Rio-Crete Urethane Cement. The Rio-Crete was our choice for the project due to its moisture-mitigating capabilities and thermal resistance—essential qualities, especially in food-preparation areas with frequent moisture and temperature fluctuations.
With the addition of a 16/30 mesh aggregate, the flooring solution resulted in a matte finish and surfaces that were resistant to impact and abrasion.
The solution also cures quickly, meaning each flooring project finished 25% faster than if the client had hired another contractor or used inferior flooring materials.
Keep your food products and floors safe with our slip-resistant flooring solutions
The ideal slip-resistant flooring solution for food processing plants must be food-safe and anti-slip, and these are qualities our coatings have in spades.
For flooring coatings that boast safety in multiple aspects, look no further than Rio Flooring Systems.
Reach out to learn more about our flooring solutions and see how we can elevate your food processing plant’s safety.