Food manufacturing processes can be extremely challenging, especially when it comes to maintaining freshness and high quality. Avoiding insect infestation in food products like flour has always been a chore, from kitchens in homes with canisters on the counter to large food manufacturing plants. If you have had trouble with beetles in your food manufacturing processes that use flour as a main ingredient, taking a closer look at your storage facilities and machines sifting screens is vital. Follow these tips when inspecting your processes so you can avoid baking insects into your products.
Following A Freshness Date Rule May Not Always Work
Confused flour beetles are crafty and can get by you easily, especially if they are passing through as eggs. When you order your products, especially flours, making certain you have a close look at them before storing them is imperative to avoid an infestation of live adult bugs later on. One way to ensure you are not storing confused flour beetles in your flour is through sifting screens. By taking steps to sift flour before you store it, you have fewer chances of finding them in your production lines later, which can pose a serious risk to your company and its profits. Just because you store flour products ahead of the their freshness date and you use them before that date does mean the risk of flour beetles does not remain. Bear in mind that flour beetles love fresh flour as much as they do flour that is old.
Use The Right Type Of Sifting Screens
When choosing sifting screens for sifting flour in your food manufacturing plant, you may have found that screens with holes that are too small greatly slow down your production. However, screens with holes that are too big allow contaminants like beetles to get through. Research has found that using sifting screen with 180-micron openings will filter out insects and their eggs, but does not allow production to remain as fast as it needs to be for making profits. Using 250-micron screens can filter out insects and their eggs while fitting into production timing better. Always remember to make regular inspections of your sifting screens because tears can happen and allow the passage of contaminants like insects. You should also know that nylon screens can become stretched over time, increasing the size of some of the holes, so looking for worn out areas in your nylon screens is a vital aspect of inspection.
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