Keeping It Clean: The Benefits Of Choosing Stainless Steel Food-Grade Conveyor Belts

Conveyor belts are essential pieces of equipment for a wide variety of food and drink manufacturing industries, from meat processing plants to bottling facilities, and anybody who operates one of these businesses should ensure that the conveyor belts they use are fit for purpose. The choice of materials used to make your conveyor belts is especially important in these industries, as using unsuitable, unsanitary materials for conveyor belt can badly undermine the high levels of hygiene required to sell your products legally and safely.

Consequently, many industries that require food-grade conveyor belts turn to stainless steel, as this remarkable metal has a number of properties that make it ideal for use in strictly sanitary environments. However, the advantages of choosing stainless steel manufacturing don't stop there, and opting for stainless steel conveyor belts can benefits your food and drink manufacturing operations in a number of ways:

Easy to clean

Keeping your conveyor belts scrupulously clean and free of degrading organic matter is vital for safe, legal food and drink production, and stainless steel is renowned for how easy it is to keep sanitary. The perfectly smooth surface of stainless steel, combined with conveyor belt designs that minimise gaps and crevices, ensures that every trace of leftover matter can be removed for your conveyors during and after operation. The ease with which stainless steel can be cleaned also reduces conveyor downtime caused by regular cleaning procedures.

Rustproof

Stainless steel's immunity to rust is one of its most desirable properties, and is particularly useful in food-grade applications. With no rust to worry about, you can be sure that food matter does not become trapped in rough, rusty metal surfaces. It also allows you to use efficient cleaning methods, such as pressure washing and liquid cleaning compounds, without worrying about residual moisture causing your belts to rust and degrade. 

Durable

While other materials such as food-grade thermoplastics can be used to construct conveyor belts, they tend to lack durability when compared to the sheer strength of steel. By using stainless steel, you combine excellent hygiene characteristics with the enormous durability of regular steel, ensuring that your conveyor can handle almost any kind of abuse you throw at it. This makes stainless steel conveyor belts particularly useful for handling heavy food-grade items, such as large glass bottles, root vegetables and animal carcasses. 

Recyclable

Even the toughest and most durable conveyor belt has a limited lifespan, and an aging conveyor belt made from non-recyclable materials will generally have to be disposed of at your own expense. However, stainless steel holds its value well due to high demand on the scrap metal market, and a stainless steel conveyor that has reached the end of its working life can easily be dismantled and recycled. Many metal merchants will pay you considerable sums for the valuable stainless steel components of your conveyor. Recycling your conveyor belts rather than simply disposing of them can also dramatically reduce your business's carbon footprint and environmental impact.

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