PMG Engineering | Build World-Class Food Factories | Article | How Poor Factory Design Quietly Undermines Food Safety and Profits

The design of your food processing facility is more than just walls and workflows— it’s the backbone of operational integrity. A poorly designed factory can be a silent saboteur, gradually chipping away at both food safety compliance and profit margins without obvious red flags until it’s too late.

According to a study published in Food Control Journal (2019), nearly 38% of contamination issues in food manufacturing plants stem from structural or design flaws that prevent proper cleaning or airflow control.

Here’s why it matters:

• Cross-contamination risks due to overlapping raw and finished product zones.
• Increased downtime during cleaning because of inaccessible design areas.
• Workflow inefficiencies that drain productivity and escalate labor costs.
• Non-compliance with food safety certifications like ISO 22000 or FSSC 22000.

In short, poor design is not just a cleanliness issue — it’s a business performance bottleneck.

What Many Companies Get Wrong

Most factories weren't built with modern food safety expectations in mind — and that's a huge problem. These common mistakes can be found in even some of the biggest brands’ facilities:

• Poorly sloped floors and shared drainage between risk zones cause water backflow and harbor pathogens like Listeria.
• Missing gowning, handwash, and shoe-change zones lead to inconsistent hygiene compliance.
• Exposed ceilings or unsealed insulation shed particles and allow pest harborage.
• Porous surfaces and inaccessible corners obstruct effective cleaning and sanitation.
• Shared HVAC systems transfer contaminated air to sensitive processing areas.
• Non-IP-rated lights can shatter or collect dust, risking product contamination.
• Incorrectly sized utility lines affect CIP efficiency, causing pressure drops or uneven cleaning.
• Overlapping waste and finished goods paths risk post-process contamination.
• Lack of allergen segregation causes frequent cross-contact in shared production zones.
• Fluctuating cold storage and poor airflow design reduce product shelf-life.
• Unsealed doors and air inlets provide entry points for pests and contaminants.
• Cluttered layouts hinder emergency isolation and delay contamination response.

A 2021 food facility recall costing over $15 million stemmed from poor air circulation that allowed Salmonella to travel from raw meat areas to packaging zones.

How Top Companies Are Getting It Right

Leading food companies are rethinking design as a strategic differentiator. Instead of cost-cutting during factory builds or upgrades, they invest in:

• Use of EHEDG and 3-A SSI standards to guide plant design.
• Creating separate air-handling systems and personnel flows for high-care vs. low-care areas.
• Stainless steel for contact surfaces, coving corners, and epoxy floorings for easy cleanability.
• Streamlining operations to reduce manual handling, which lowers contamination risks.
• Use of IoT sensors for temperature, humidity, and pathogen detection.

According to the CRB "Horizons: Food & Beverage Report" (2022), 70% of top-performing food companies cited “factory layout redesign” as a major contributor to achieving higher food safety scores and operational efficiency.

How PMG Engineering Delivers Smarter Factory Design

PMG doesn’t just design buildings. We design safe, scalable, and regulation-ready food processing facilities that reduce risk while improving throughput. Our designs are guided by FSSC 22000, BRCGS, ISO 22000, and GMP frameworks.

Our approach includes:

1. Zoning, From the First Layout Draft

Most design flaws arise from overlooking hygiene zoning until it’s too late. At PMG, we integrate zoning principles from the conceptual layout stage itself. Raw, process, wet, dry, and hygienic zones (high, medium, low) are physically separated, while flows of material, manpower, and utilities are mapped early to avoid any cross-contamination. Cleanable barriers, airlocks, and controlled access points are built into the layout — ensuring regulatory compliance (BRCGS, FSSC 22000, etc.) is not an afterthought, but a fundamental part of the factory’s design.

2. Airflow Control, Not Just Ventilation

Air is a hidden vector for contamination. We plan airflow direction, filtration, and pressurization based on zone criticality and roof and ducting layouts envisaged that simplify future HVAC maintenance. Result? Better microbiological control, longer shelf life, and Comfort working.

3. Flow Segregation, Not Just SOPs

We don’t rely on posters and policies to control movement, as they can be source of foreign material themselves. Instead, PMG designs unidirectional flows that naturally separate: raw materials and finished goods; Employees working in raw vs. clean zones; Cleaning teams, maintenance teams, and production staff; Visual zoning, controlled access, and process-aligned layouts reduce dependency on people — and that reduces risk.

4. Drainage, Engineered for Hygiene

Pooling water is one of the most overlooked threats in food factories. We design drainage as a preventive hygiene tool with sloped floors towards hygienically placed drains, separate drainage zones to prevent cross-contamination and drain layouts that prevent backflow and allow easy cleaning.

Dry floors = lower Listeria risk = higher food safety assurance.

5. Clean Utility Integration, Not an Afterthought

Most factories fit utilities around equipment, creating cleaning nightmares. We reverse that — designing utilities with cleanliness in mind. Our design comprises of Piping and cable trays installed on cleanable racks, away from product zones, avoiding overhead condensation risks above open product areas, and organizing utilities into service corridors for inspection ease

Your factory remains audit-friendly even during maintenance shutdowns.

6. Build for Cleaning, Not Just Building

Every finish, corner, joint, and wall we design answers one question: “Can it be cleaned easily?”

Rounded coves, sealed panels, and slope-controlled ceilings, no hidden ledges, unreachable junctions, or porous materials.

7. Pest-Prevention

Pests don’t enter by chance — they enter through poor design. We pre-empt that by, eliminating dead spaces and gaps during structural detailing, designing loading bays and entries with pest-control buffers, planning external lighting and waste areas to minimize attraction, and multilevel defence by planning proper pest control accessories like Flycatcher and roda-box.

Proper Design = reduced dependency on chemical pest control.

Next Steps to Take Right Now

If you're unsure whether your factory design is proper, here’s your action plan:

1. Audit your current layout — focus on personnel flow, air movement, equipment placement, and hygiene zoning.
2. Consult a design partner that understands food factory challenges.
3. Invest in data-backed redesigns — not cosmetic changes, but operational upgrades.

Studies by NIRAS Engineering show that facility redesigns focusing on process flow and hygiene zoning can improve productivity by 10–25% and reduce contamination risk by 60%.

Busting Myths: What You Didn't Know About Factory Design

“Factory upgrades are too expensive.”

Most design fixes offer a full ROI within 2 years due to efficiency and safety improvements.

“We’ve never had a contamination issue, so we’re fine.”

Pathogens like Listeria monocytogenes can linger undetected in cracks and crevices for years, becoming active during temperature/humidity shifts.

“Cleaning protocols are enough.”

Even the best SOPs fail if your design traps dirt or obstructs access. Sanitary design is the foundation of food safety.

Reference

·        Food Safety Magazine – Facility Design and Cross-Contamination Control

·        World Health Organization (WHO) – Food Safety Fact Sheet

·        FDA – Food Safety Plan Builder: Environmental Monitoring & HVAC Considerations

·        EHEDG – Hygienic Design Principles for Food Factories

·        BIFMA – The Cost of Poor Design in Manufacturing Facilities

·        ISO 22000:2018 – Food Safety Management Systems Standard

·        Campden BRI – Economic Benefits of Hygienic Design

·        Lean Enterprise Institute – Lean Facility Design Guidelines

·        FDA – Food Facility Design Guidance (PDF)

·        European Commission – EC Regulation 852/2004 on Food Hygiene

·        PMG Engineering Experience –Best practices from real projects