The Importance of Flooring Safety in the Food and Beverage Industry

Whether you own a bakery, a meat, seafood or produce processing facility or a dairy plant, your employees are your number one asset.

So, shouldn’t you protect them?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), falls are the number one cause of fatalities on the job after transportation-related deaths, which usually occur on the road.

When you consider that a slip, trip, or fall can cause injury or worse, the death of an employee or customer, the importance of installing and maintaining the right flooring in your facility becomes crystal clear. The leading causes of slips, trips and falls on foodservice flooring include:

Uneven floors
Unsuitable floor coverings (rugs, mats)
Wet floors
Trailing cables
Cluttered workspaces
Poor lighting
Poor housekeeping practices

Concussions, head or spinal injuries and broken bones are often the result of these flooring hazards.

Food Safe Flooring vs. Food Grade Epoxy

With over 166,000 foodservice plants in the United States, the importance of food-safe flooring solutions continues to rise. While many are looking for “food grade epoxy” solutions, this isn’t the best solution for food and beverage manufacturing plants.

Rather than ‘food-grade epoxy flooring,’ your foodservice facility needs ‘food safe flooring’ to provide sanitary surfaces that can be counted on. Food safe flooring solutions provide seamless, easy to clean surfaces that not only protect your employees, they protect your products – another of your greatest assets.

At Surface Solutions, our number one priority is recommending and installing industrial flooring solutions that maintain themselves and retain high-quality standards. With close to $70 billion in worker’s compensation and medical costs for falls being paid out annually according to the National Safety Council, taking floor safety seriously is good business. Where do you find a floor that is durable to high traffic, withstands heavy impacts from machinery, is anti-slip, stain-resistant, and meets the requirements of the OSHA, USDA, and FDA? Surface Solutions USA.

We carry a full line of USDA- and FDA-approved flooring options. Surface Solutions is also a Flow Resin STAR Contractor, which means we have specially trained technicians who are experts in seamless resin flooring installations.

Safe, Sanitary and Economical

Protect the two most significant assets your company has, your employees and your product. Look beyond traditional food-grade epoxy floors. These surfaces have seams and grout lines that harbor bacteria, listeria and salmonella. Cleaning with harsh chemicals damages them and ruins their appearance. Your foodservice plant needs a surface that is safe, sanitary and economical. The protective hygienic coating on Surface Solution’s seamless urethane concrete systems resist contamination from food, blood, grease, oil and many acidic solutions. Its high-grade texture helps prevent trips, slips and falls. Our seamless urethane concrete system is the perfect solution for all types of floors. We can add a topcoat that contains coarse particles to help make floors safer. Our flooring is durable, great looking and fulfills all your safety requirements. Working with Surface Solutions is a win-win for any foodservice plant.

About Surface Solutions, Inc.

Recognized as a top UCRETE® Master Contractor since 2012, Surface Solutions, Inc. is an independent industrial floor contractor specializing in seamless, polymer flooring systems utilizing the most trusted brands in the industry. As a Flow Resin STAR Contractor, Surface Solutions, Inc. is a leading provider of industrial flooring solutions for the Food & Beverage industry. From testing to consultation and complete installation services, Surface Solutions is your premier source of non-toxic, safe and environmentally friendly flooring systems, offering turnkey installations using only in-house personnel. All installations come with a complete single source warranty. To learn more about how Surface Solutions can help provide the highest quality industrial flooring solutions for your business, contact us today!