How Polygiene helps keep the floor hygienic in food and beverage plants

They can also be found in other places where cleanliness is of critical importance, such as hospitals, as well as in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries.

Flowcrete has partnered with Polygiene since 2006 on its Flowfresh range, which offers enhanced protection with the inclusion of Polygiene Stays Fresh technology.

Based on polyurethane concrete, the key aspects of Flowfresh, making it an ultra-hygienic flooring system, include its seamless, impervious, highly durable nature combined with its ability to incorporate coving and stainless-steel drainage.

Each product holds its own against impact, traffic and temperature; protects against chemicals, fats, hot oils, sugar and acids; delivers improved air quality during installation and beyond; and provides a positively textured profile to minimize the risk of slips.

In addition, Flowfresh flooring products can reduce bacteria by up to 99.9% thanks to the antimicrobial properties of Polygiene Stays Fresh.

The company is now launching a new Flowfresh range, which will be on the market in April 2022 delivers advanced operational benefits.

These are the updates in a nutshell:

• A large number of the Flowfresh systems are now available in a QUICK version. The development of these fast curing versions grants a crucial benefit: It is fast in service and ensures low immobilization cost in the industry for maintenance work.

• More systems have now been split and dedicated to defined thickness ranges. This results in a perfect combination of visual, performance and cost aspects.

• The Flowfresh SR system has undergone an extensive, slip-resistance testing to define the 3 grades most required in wet manufacturing industry, based on DIN standards – R12, R13 V6, and R13 V10.

• Furthermore, the range of bodycoats has been extended. The applicator is thus provided with flexible solutions to choose from, depending on the required system thickness, ease of application and cost.

• The new Flowfresh ESD SL has been reformulated and this new system will provide ESD performance combined with low thickness (2 mm). Further benefits are the easy installation and the smooth, aesthetic finish.

• The new unified pack size allows for reduced stock size and improves flexibility on-site.

“Adding Polygiene in our floor coating systems provides a plus and a clear USP with respect to other similar flooring systems on the market,” says Enric Gres, European content marketing manager at CPG Europe.

He explains that the performance benefits offered by the Flowfresh range are long-lasting, which in turn provides numerous extra advantages.

“The performance will remain at the same level as the first time even after five, ten or 20 years, thanks to Polygiene,” he explains. “So, the treatment complements cleaning regimes and it also means you don’t need to use additional antimicrobial components on your flooring.”

Typically, hygienic floor finishes and coatings will rely on harsh chemicals to kill bacteria. However, Polygiene® is an all-natural solution and instead uses the power of silver salt. No other flooring solution utilizes the natural properties of natural silver to prevent the growth of germs in this way.

The Polygiene additive is homogenously distributed throughout the Flowfresh system, which allows it to remain active for the lifetime of the floor even if worn or damaged. This is a great advantage for food and beverage facilities where the floor is subject to heavy mechanical impacts on a daily basis, as a damaged floor provides microorganisms with the opportunity to colonize, especially within hard to clean areas sheltered from the cleaning process.

Along with the performance benefits, Gres stresses that having the Polygiene name associated with their products also helps position Flowfresh strongly in the marketplace.

“Polygiene is a well-known brand, so it helps create more confidence in our customers,” he says. “Flowcrete is the leader for flooring solutions in most countries, so we have to choose the best partners to work with.

“There are other companies using silver salt in their flooring products, but I believe we are the only one using Polygiene. For us, this is a key difference, because we are not only talking about the performance of the silver ions, but also benefiting from the background, experience and expertise of the Polygiene brand.”

The level of hygiene offered by Flowfresh and Polygiene is becoming increasingly important for food and beverage companies, which account for around 90% of the users of Flowfresh flooring products.

Gres notes that treating Flowfresh products with Polygiene Protection technology helps ensure they comply with the HACCP International certification, widely recognized as the leading standard for suppliers of non-food products to the food industry.

“This is a well-known certification you have to include on your system if you want to be the leader in this area, and for the facilities, it’s really important to have this on the products and systems they are using.”

Flowfresh also meets both the ISO 22196 and JIS 222801 standards for measuring a surface’s antibacterial effectiveness.

With regulations for the food and beverage sector becoming ever tighter in Europe, Gres adds that there is a growing demand for hygienic solutions such as Flowfresh.

“Flooring market trends predict that this kind of technology will grow in the coming years,” he concludes. “The requirements are becoming more and more demanding and we are seeing this from our customers – they are now more interested in the benefits of these products in terms of a return on investment and the requests we are getting from them are becoming bigger and bigger.”