Hygienic Design Essentials for Food Industry Professionals

At 04h30 the kettle had been cleaned three times and the swab still failed

The outlet valve sat 40 mm above the bottom of the bowl. Forty millimetres of curry stayed behind every single night, and no detergent strength, no contact time and no amount of scrubbing reaches what gravity was never asked to move. That is not a cleaning failure. It is a drainage geometry decision somebody took on a drawing years ago, and the night shift has been paying the interest on it ever since.

Hygienic design is the engineering discipline that decides whether a plant can be cleaned at all. It is metallurgy and surface topography, the fluid dynamics of a cleaning circuit, weld metallurgy, elastomer behaviour under heat, drainage hydraulics and the pressure difference across a doorway. This course takes the part of that discipline every food industry professional has to be able to see, measure and argue for, and teaches it with the numbers attached and the source of every number named.

Designed with industry leading engineers and technical food safety consultants

Designed with industry leading engineers and technical food safety consultants. The panel behind the material is hygienic equipment design, facilities and utilities, and process and automation engineers, working with food safety specialists, process controllers, quality managers and hygiene practitioners. The engineers set the tolerances and the failure mechanisms. The practitioners made sure every one of them can be checked on a real line with a torch, a mirror, a camera and a short steel rule.

Hygienic Design Essentials for Food Industry Professionals. Document code FS32-0301. Foundation level, 5 hours, self paced, online, on any phone. R2,400. No discount codes apply to the hygienic design series.

What this course is not

It is not a food safety awareness course. It is not a certificate mill, and it is not a slide deck of EHEDG logos with a quiz at the end. It teaches numbers, tolerances, materials and evidence: a 3 mm minimum internal radius where a corner closes to less than 135 degrees, a minimum 3 degree slope on a surface that has to drain, Ra 0.8 micrometre and why the average roughness hides the defect that matters, the length to diameter test on a blanked branch, and the R638 regulation 6(4)(b)(i) limit of 100 viable micro-organisms per square centimetre after cleaning. Then it expects you to walk a line, score it, and come back with a job card list somebody has to cost. If you want a wall certificate without that walk, this is the wrong course.

Buying from outside South Africa

The price is in South African rand. Indicative US dollar and euro equivalents are shown on this page by the currency converter, and payment settles in rand. The design rules themselves are international: EHEDG Guideline 8, EN 1672-2, Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 for food contact materials, NSF registration for lubricants, and the GFSI benchmarked schemes FSSC 22000, BRCGS, IFS and SQF, plus ISO 22000. The South African law content, R638 regulations 5, 6 and 7, sits in clearly marked sections. It is there because it is a good worked example of a hygiene regulation written in plain requirements, and because it gives a number for a cleaned surface that most schemes leave open. It is not the spine of the course.

Who it is for

• QA and QC officers and technologists
• Production supervisors and line leaders
• Hygiene team leaders and sanitation supervisors
• Artisans, fitters and maintenance staff
• Buyers and procurement staff who sign equipment orders
• Food technologists and product developers
• New food safety practitioners and anyone preparing for a first audit
• Consultants and auditors who need the vocabulary and the numbers

No engineering background is assumed. Every term is defined the first time it is used, with an example off a real machine.

Who it is not for

If you already select steel grades against a chloride figure, calculate a length to diameter ratio without thinking about it and sign weld records, this course will be slow for you. Go straight to Intermediate Hygienic Design: Equipment, Materials and the Food Factory. It is also the wrong course for anyone looking for a general food hygiene refresher. Nothing here is about hand washing, temperature control or personal hygiene.

What you will be able to do after it

• Explain, to an engineer or a site director, why cleaning cannot correct a design fault, using the sequence of ingress, accumulation and growth at one crevice.
• Classify any surface on a machine as food area, splash area or non food area using the EN 1672-2 definitions, and tell open equipment from closed equipment on a certificate.
• Judge material and surface finish against the EHEDG Guideline 8 requirements and the words in R638 regulation 6(1): where 304 stops and 316 starts, what Ra 0.8 micrometre means, and why pitting cannot be rinsed clean.
• Measure a corner, a slope and a dead leg against the rules: a 3 mm radius at internal angles of less than 135 degrees, a slope of at least 3 degrees, and a length to diameter ratio you can calculate on the floor.
• Tell a continuous weld from a stitch weld, a front flush gasket from a recessed one, and a sealed hollow frame from a capped one, on sight.
• Walk a conveyor in six stops, check a tank, hopper, pipe, pump or valve for the four faults that keep product behind, and check floors, drains, walls, ceilings, doors and lighting against R638 regulations 5 and 6.
• Run the 30 point hygienic design walk on your own line or room, score each point 0, 1 or 2, and turn every zero into a job card with a priority.
• Write a one page hygienic purchase specification and list the evidence to demand from a supplier before the machine is delivered, not after it is bolted down.

What is inside: 4 modules, 15 lessons

Module 1: Why hygienic design decides food safety

• What hygienic design is, and why cleaning cannot fix it
• Where microbes hide: harbourage, niches and biofilm
• Food area, splash area, non food area; open and closed equipment

Where Listeria monocytogenes sits in wet plant, where Salmonella survives in dry plant, and why a cleaning brush with a missing end cap is a design item rather than a housekeeping one. The three areas of EN 1672-2 are the grammar for the rest of the course: they decide which rule applies to which surface.

Module 2: The ten rules of hygienic design

• Rules 1 and 2: materials and surfaces
• Rules 3 to 5: radii, drainability and dead spaces
• Rules 6 to 8: joints, seals and fasteners
• Rules 9 and 10: installation and access

This is the numbers module. Materials that stay inert to product and to caustic and acid, surface finish and the topography an Ra value cannot show you, the radius and the slope, the dead leg, continuous welds against stitch welds, front flush seals, fasteners with no exposed thread in the food area, and how a machine must stand on a floor and open for cleaning.

Module 3: Spotting bad design on the floor

• Conveyors
• Tanks, hoppers, pipes, pumps and valves
• The building: floors, drains, walls, ceilings, doors and lighting
• The hygienic design walk

The rules go onto the floor. Six stops down a belt conveyor, the four shapes that keep product behind in a vessel or a pipe run, and the building judged as equipment. The module ends with the 30 point walk, scored, with the zeros turned into job cards.

Module 4: Making it stick

• Cleaning and design are two sides of one coin
• Maintenance, modifications and temporary repairs
• Buying equipment: what the law and the schemes ask
• Your action plan and the workshop

The Sinner circle, and what bad design costs a site in chemical, temperature, time and effort for the same result. Then the temporary repair register, the hygienic maintenance rules, and the purchase specification with the evidence a supplier has to produce before installation, not after.

Alongside the lessons there are four practice games, one per module, drilling the judgement the job needs: Spot the harbourage, Food area, splash or non food?, Which rule is broken?, and Fix it or stop the line? Each one puts you on a South African site at the moment somebody has to decide.

The tools you walk away with

Most training leaves you with notes. This one is built so that the week after you finish, there is something on an engineer’s desk with your name on it.

What you get	What it does for you on Monday
The Hygienic Design Walk, a 30 point scored line audit	Scores one line or one room out of 60 in about twenty minutes at the end of a cleaning window, flags any zero that sits in the food area of high care equipment or within reach of a recent positive swab, names your three weakest rules, and exports a job card spreadsheet engineering can work from. It runs on a phone at the machine.
The 30 point checklist as a printable sheet	The same 30 points on paper, laid out to photocopy and carry with a torch, a mirror, a camera and a short steel rule, for the areas where the phone stays in the locker.
The ten rules reference table	All ten rules on one page: the question each rule asks and the floor test that answers it, with the lessons naming the document behind every number, so you can say where a figure comes from when a supplier pushes back.
15 case packs with model answers	Tasks, real site data and the answer a competent practitioner would give, reasoned out, so you check your thinking and not your memory.
The 69 page learner manual	Every rule, number and specification line in writing, at the desk where you write the enquiry, and usable in a classroom or on a site with no signal.
14 original engineering diagrams	Most of them the same object drawn badly and then well, so you can point at the difference in a meeting instead of describing it.
A QR verified certificate	Carries your name, the course title, the document code FS32-0301 and the date, with a QR code an auditor, a retailer technologist or an HR officer can scan to confirm it. That is what makes it usable as training evidence in your file.

The diagrams are drawn for this course: the crevice that cleaning passes over, ingress and growth inside a hollow frame tube, food, splash and non food area on one open kettle, six stops on a conveyor, four shapes that keep product behind, one high care room with six building faults, and the purchase path with its evidence gates.

The case study, so you can do the course without a factory

Every activity, case pack and workshop sitting works on a provided case site, so a delegate between jobs, studying, consulting or working off site can complete the whole course, including the practical stages. The main site is Mzansi Fresh Meals in Gauteng: 400 people on two shifts, chilled ready meals with a 12 day shelf life, a 22 person hygiene team, and ten pieces of equipment with named faults, complete with its swab history, its open job cards, its water use and its cost of a late start. Other short cases take you into a bakery, a citrus packhouse, a juice plant and a spaza supplier kitchen, so people outside ready meals see their own plant.

The cases are training scenarios built from patterns that real investigations and audits keep finding. No company is named in any of them.

Why it matters commercially

Equipment clauses are where sites lose points. Commonly cited industry reporting puts BRCGS clause 4.6.2 on equipment design and construction among the most common minor non conformances raised under Issue 9. The course teaches the requirements you will be asked about:

Standard or scheme	Clause	What it asks for
FSSC 22000 Version 6 and Version 7	2.5.15 Equipment management	A documented purchase specification covering hygienic design, legal and customer requirements and intended use; supplier evidence of meeting it before installation; risk based change management with commissioning evidence
BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9	4.6.1 to 4.6.4	Purchase specification and authorisation, design and construction based on risk, installation and commissioning, mobile equipment
IFS Food Version 8	4.17.1 to 4.17.5	Fitness for purpose, hygienic design of product contact materials and construction, validation before use of new or modified equipment, condition monitoring, change management
SQF Edition 9	Module 11 (11.1.2 premises, 11.1.7 equipment and utensils)	Flooring smooth, dense and effectively drained; drains easy to clean; walls, ceilings and doors durable, light coloured and easy to clean; equipment and utensils designed and installed to prevent food safety risks
ISO 22000:2018	7.1.3 and 8.2.4	Infrastructure, and the suitability of equipment and its accessibility for cleaning and maintenance, plus supplier approval, when prerequisite programmes are established
R638 of 2018 (South Africa)	Regulations 5, 6 and 7	Premises, facilities and equipment: surfaces smooth, rust-proof, non-toxic and non-absorbent with no open joints; nothing chipped, split or cracked; not more than 100 viable micro-organisms per square centimetre after cleaning; ventilation, 200 lux lighting, hand washing and approved waste-water disposal

Those clauses are what an auditor or an environmental health practitioner tests. The money sits one level down. The AINIA demonstration project, adopted as a Best Available Technique in the European reference document for food, drink and milk, reported an average cleaning saving of 38 percent on the equipment it tested, and one conveyor rebuilt with drum motors, a new belt and a new frame went from almost 30 minutes of cleaning to 17. A Campden BRI study of chilled ready to eat factories found 47 percent of cleaning equipment positive for Listeria monocytogenes, which is why the course treats a brush with a missing end cap as a design problem rather than a housekeeping one. A delegate who comes back with a scored walk and a job card list has given the site something to cost.

How it is assessed, and the certificate

• Four knowledge checks, one per module: 15 questions drawn at random, so no two papers are the same. Thirty seconds a question, 70 percent to pass, three attempts.
• Four games, one per module: 10 questions drawn at random, 45 seconds a question, three attempts.
• A final assessment of 30 questions drawn at random, so every attempt is different. Thirty seconds a question, 70 percent to pass, three attempts, video proctored on any phone or laptop camera, with copy and paste blocked.
• Four scenario checks and three case study assessments, placed between the lessons as breaks, on Mzansi Fresh Meals, Amanzi Dairy and Karoo Meat Processors. Timed, 70 percent to pass, three attempts.
• Three practical stages at the end of Module 4, on the course case sites: score walk points from described observations, apply the two override flags and build the job card list, then choose the two things to change first and judge the note to management. Each stage is timed, draws from a larger bank of questions, and is marked automatically the moment you submit, with feedback that names the lesson to revisit. Nothing is uploaded and nobody waits for a marker. The walk tool stays free for use on your own line.
• The certificate carries your name, the course title, the document code FS32-0301 and the date, with a QR code an auditor, a retailer technologist or an HR officer can scan to confirm it.

Every question is written against the lessons, so the assessment tests whether you can apply a rule, not whether you can remember a sentence.

Read the free guide first

If you want to see the writing before you pay for it, read the free guide What is hygienic design in food manufacturing, then run the free Hygienic Design Walk on one of your own lines. If the walk leaves you with faults you can see but cannot yet name, score or argue for, this course is the next step.

The series

This is course 1 of 3. Course 2, Intermediate Hygienic Design: Equipment, Materials and the Food Factory, takes it into the risk based hygiene levels, materials and corrosion, closed equipment and CIP design, open equipment and conveying in depth, the building and its services, and a scored hygienic design risk register. Course 3, Advanced Hygienic Design: Risk Assessment, Specification, Verification and Project Delivery, covers hygienic design risk assessment, the user requirement specification and supplier evaluation, welding and design detail, facility and HVAC engineering, commissioning and validation, and a capstone project. Sector versions for bakery, meat processing and other plants are being added to the same structure. Essentials is the entry point and the common language for all of them.

Questions people ask before they enrol

Is this course accredited? ASC Food Safety Consultants is a training provider whose courses carry HPCSA CPD accreditation. Your certificate of completion carries a QR code that verifies the holder, the course and the date. The course is built on the EHEDG guidelines, EN 1672-2, ISO 14159, the GFSI benchmarked schemes and South African law, but it is not approved or endorsed by EHEDG or by any scheme owner, and we do not claim that it is.

Do I need an engineering background? No. It is written for QA staff, supervisors, hygiene teams, artisans and buyers. Where a number matters, such as a 3 mm radius, a 3 degree slope or Ra 0.8 micrometre, the course tells you where it comes from and how to check it with a steel rule, a torch and your fingernail.

Do I need to be working at a factory? No. Every activity, including the workshop and the practical stages, runs on a provided case site with full data, so you can complete the course while between jobs, studying or consulting. If you are on a site, you do the same tasks on your own line.

I am outside South Africa. Will it apply to my plant? Yes. The design rules, the standards and the scheme clauses are international, and the tools are written against them. The South African regulation is one marked section, kept because it is a clear worked example and because it puts a number on a cleaned surface. You pay in rand; the page shows indicative dollar and euro equivalents.

Will it help with my FSSC or BRCGS audit? It teaches the equipment and premises requirements directly: FSSC 22000 clause 2.5.15, BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 clauses 4.6.1 to 4.6.4, IFS Food Version 8 clauses 4.17.1 to 4.17.5, SQF Edition 9 Module 11, ISO 22000 clauses 7.1.3 and 8.2.4, and R638 regulations 5, 6 and 7, with the purchase specification and the evidence a supplier must provide before installation. It is not a clause by clause course on one scheme, so read your own standard alongside it. The completed walk and job card list are the kind of record an auditor can look at.

Can my whole team do it? Yes, and it works better that way. The value comes from a QA officer, an artisan and a hygiene team leader walking the same line with the same 30 points and agreeing on what is a design fault and what is a cleaning fault. Teams of five or more should contact ASC for a group arrangement.

How long do I have access? The course is 5 hours of lessons, games, checks and tools, self paced, so you can do it in one sitting or over a few evenings on your phone. You can go back into the lessons and the walk tool after you have passed. If your company needs a set access period stated on a purchase order, ask ASC before you enrol and it will be confirmed in writing.

What if I fail a quiz? The pass mark is 70 percent on every knowledge check, scenario check, case study, practical stage and on the final. Knowledge checks, games, scenario checks, case studies, practical stages and the final all allow three attempts, with different questions drawn each time.

About the trainer

Trainer: ASC Team. This course was compiled by the ASC Food Safety Consultants team with the help of a panel of industry engineers (hygienic equipment design, facilities and utilities, process and automation), food safety specialists, process controllers, quality managers and hygiene practitioners, and built on the EHEDG guidelines, EN 1672-2, ISO 14159, the GFSI benchmarked schemes and South African law.

Enrol

R2,400. No discount codes apply to the hygienic design series. The price is in South African rand, with indicative US dollar and euro equivalents shown on this page and payment settling in rand.

Designed with industry leading engineers and technical food safety consultants. Start today, on your phone, at your own pace. You will finish with the ten rules, the eye to use them, a scored walk of your own line and a job card list somebody can act on.

Running this across a whole site

Everything above is included and stays free to you: the walk, the register, the printable
checklists and the case studies. They score one line at a time in your browser, which is what a
delegate needs.

If you are going to run this month after month across a site, the ASC Hygienic Design
Inspection System is the subscription that keeps it. Every walk is kept, so each line
carries its own score history and you can see which points keep failing and which zeros actually
closed. Guidance sits against all 30 checks, with the rule, the source document, the usual cause
and the line to write into a specification. At the end of a walk it writes the inspection report
for you, with the priority zeros, every finding against its rule, the cost argument and a one page
note for management naming the top five. Print it, or take it away as a spreadsheet. R1,950 per
site for 12 months, renewable. It opens on ascfoodsafety.com shortly, and you can
ask to be set up on the day it does.

Teams of five or more: contact ASC for a group arrangement and we will invoice the company against your purchase order.