Conveyor Belts for the Food Industry

Food Regulations
The general aim is to ensure safe food, protecting human health and the environment. Food regulations affect in varying degrees manufacturers of chemical substances, manufacturers of food contact materials such as belting, and food manufacturers. The regulations imply restrictions that foster the development of new products and procedures. In developed areas regulations phase out of the food contact materials market products, manufacturers and importers that do not comply. Obtaining compliance is often a complex and time consuming process; also some regulations, are regularly subjected to amendments, clarifications and extensions.


FDA 
An FDA product is a product approved by the USA Food and Drug Administration, whose broad aim is to ensure safe food. The FDA does not test products itself but rather reviews the results and product information of accepted laboratories.
Approval processes of the FDA are dependant upon the risks that every product category poses to consumers. Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations lists the substances permitted in food contact materials, stipulated by the executive Departments and Agencies of the USA Federal Government.

HACCP 
To ensure safe food, traditionally manufacturers have used spot checks of manufacturing conditions and random sampling of final products. The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system is a more efficient, preventive health and safety methodology that directly affects food producers. It aims at evaluating eventual health hazards and establishing adequate monitoring and corrective actions at explicitly identified critical points of food manufacturing, packaging and transport processes. The FDA and European regulatory agencies are developing specific procedures to establish HACCP as the standard food quality system throughout all areas of the food industry. As such, it has little to do with the technical characteristics of belt types: if appropriately cleaned and replaced, any food quality belt might be applied in HACCP processes.
However consensus is developing that only antibacterial belts might be said to assist food manufacturers in the implementation of the HACCP quality system.


REACH 
It involves the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemical substances in a central public data base run by the European Chemicals Agency.
Entered into force on 1 June 2007 but its provisions are phased-in over 11 years, so benefits will come gradually. However as of 2009 all substances available in the European Union must at least be pre-registered. It directly affects manufacturers and importers of chemical substances, not conveyor manufacturers. The Manufacturer requires and monitors that all of its raw materials suppliers comply, and consults the data base to look for hazard information.


ATEX
With preventing aims, the European ATEX Directive applies to components of machinery, such as belting, working in potentially explosive environments.
Explosions may occur in processes with dust, milling, drying, conveyance and storage in silos, most particularly if bucket elevators are involved. Due to this, the ATEX certified belts are all of the Espot, Drago and Febor series. Within the different existing ATEX categories the belts are ATEX Category 2, meaning compliance with Directive 94/9/EC, which applies to non electrical components of machinery for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.

Regulation EU 10/2011* and Regulation 1935/2004 EU 10/2011 
is the European quasi equivalent to the USA FDA, this normative establishes a list of products that are acceptable as food contact materials. It directly affects belt manufacturers. The product listing under FDA and under EU 10/2011 are not automatically the same.
Under this Regulation, belts cannot release their chemical components into carried foodstuff above a global limit of 10 mg/dm2 of surface area.
It also establishes some maximum migration limits for specific substances used in the belt chemical formulas.