In the 1990s there was a huge explosion in the food industry in the UK and many of the sites with us now were built between the early 90s and 2000.
Sometimes the designs didn't meet best practice at the time. Sometimes there wasn't better knowledge. While high care / high risk standards were normally in place, some of those drains are now failing. Roofs designed for rainfall much less intense than we get leading to troughs being overwhelmed...
Food manufacturing is the biggest manufacturing industry in the UK.
So where is the investment? Where are the new buildings going up future proofing us for the next 30 years?
We have businesses sweating assets and only one or two businesses are actually investing and only then if it's for the return, not to replace tired buildings which are going to be (for Brits out there) like Trigger's broom. In one recent site, every time we refurbished a room, I insisted we put in money to fix the drain issues we'd inevitably find. But it's sticking plaster upon sticking plaster.... I could see and tried to push for a long term plan for something more robust, even a new site. Because there comes a point where, especially if repairs have been haphazard, repair probably won't fix all the problems, if they're even fixable.
The problem is the old food sites in the UK aren't the chilled ones and in some ambient sites, to an extent you can get away with it (albeit look to the likes of cadbury's when you really can't.) Apart from cheese, which, for the most part is not quite the same, I cannot think of a major company with a chilled site in place since before the 80s. And even that old is rare. It's a ticking time bomb in my view of food safety risk that no site directors want to face up to knowing they'll be in role for 3 years max and moved on before it becomes critical.
How are your establishments bearing up around the world? Are they of a similar age? Is there any strategy to replace?
