SQF 9.1.2.4 - Can production flooring be of any color?

Hi all,

 

Looking for some advice. Gearing up for initial SQF certification at a RTE pork sausage company. We grind, fill and smoke pork sausages in a wood burning smoker then cryovac and ship. Building is about 100 years old with many different floorings hobbled together. I am looking at a epoxy flooring that worked well at a seafood plant. 

 

My question is: can the flooring be of any color? 9.1.2.4 states that internal surfaces shall have an even and regular surface and be impervious with a light-colored finish. The flooring we had for a BRC cert seafood plant had green epoxy flooring, held up great with chemicals, forklifts and hundreds of employees daily. Any objections on a green colored floor? It would also be easy to spot dropped product, and make a uniform coating over all the various flooring we have now. 

 

 Small detail but with the cost I want to make sure its right before I get it installed.

 

Thanks

I've never heard of any color standard to the floors! As long as they're made of proper material (not wood), cleanable, impervious and sloped, where necessary, they should be satisfactory to any kind of standard or regulatory requirements.

Funtionality and reliance is key - the color green is fine.

Agreed. To give you piece of mind - I work for a company that only designs and constructs food manufacturing facilities. We've done blue, red, and green MRF/ epoxy flooring before.

I don't know the condition of your floors but we've noticed that just doing those thin epoxy coatings don't last very long. I would do your research on the companies you ask to bid. Might not want to go with the cheapest quote because in our experience they typically haven't done great work.

"Might not want to go with the cheapest quote because in our experience they typically haven't done great work."

ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON KARA!

When I was a food safety inspector I took professional level courses on flooring in various types of applications.

I did inspects at a number of "big box" stores and this one chain ďecided to use the cheapest installer for their meat departments - nice, cold and wet environments that are hard on flooring.

Anyway, the company they used for 15 locations did not put down the bottom layer correctly so that it did adhere to the base floor and then poured the top layer that was not meant for a cold and wet environment - yes, it became contaminated with seepage between and under the layers and I got to tour all 15 and it was deteemined to rip it all up, sue the installer and go with the one that knew what they were doing.

Agreeing with others here, functionality is more important than the color being "light" as per code.  If it contrasts with your product you can use that reasoning in the unlikely event it comes up that an auditor wants to nitpick.

 

We've got areas of dark red flooring that none of our auditors or inspectors have ever mentioned.  They're more likely to point out potholes or other physical degradation.

Every slaughterhouse I've worked in has had dark red floor (for obvious reasons) never any objections from auditors

 

Make sure the floor isn't slippery! It doesn't take much to tip a large smoker cart over