The Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS) of the FDA are the benchmark used by each state for food and beverage manufacturers. Last updated in 2016, these increasingly strict regulations are meant to reduce foodborne illness hazards, which afflict roughly 48 million Americans each year. In order to remain in compliance with FDA standards, food and beverage manufacturers are increasingly turning to FDA food-grade plastic for their custom parts. FDA food-grade plastic ensures maximum hygiene and non-contamination of foodstuff and can be machined into a variety of food processing parts, from augers and hoppers to rollers and chute liners.
Unlike injection molding, which requires the costly and time-consuming creation of a mold to form a part, CNC machines can produce numerous designs quickly. This allows companies to test multiple prototypes at once, reducing the amount of time spent in development. It also helps keep a project moving if the FDA should reject a design. Since the FDA will not accept the same design twice, even if it has been altered to try and attain compliance, having multiple designs in production helps avoid having to go back to the drawing board. This can greatly increase the speed with which one of your designs meets FDA approval. We can also machine your prototypes from the same FDA food-grade plastic as the final product, avoiding false testing information related to the prototypes’ divergence from the intended design.
Additionally, FDA food-grade plastic parts help shorten the certification time of equipment, allowing for faster installation. They also help you maintain compliance through excellent release properties that ensure no food clings to parts, chemical resistance to cleaners for better overall hygiene, and self-lubricating properties that eliminate the need for expensive food-grade lubricants. FDA food-grade plastic can even give food a higher shelf time. For example, our dairy-compliant materials provide a lower level of contamination that allows more shelf time than products handled with traditional materials.
In addition to improved compliance, FDA food-grade plastic parts work harder and longer than metal counterparts, helping to reduce maintenance costs. Custom plastic parts aren’t susceptible to corrosion and demonstrate remarkable load capacity, frictional properties, wear resistance and chemical resistance. Their excellent sliding properties and high wear resistance can also improve the efficiency of sliding elements, such as those used in bottling and canning lines. And with the ability to hold tight tolerances and be precisely machined, FDA food-grade plastic parts offer better design capabilities and higher levels of automation.
For decades, the experts at Reading Plastic have been machining precise plastic parts for clients around the globe. We can make sure your food handling parts comply with the standards of the FDA, USDA, 3-A dairy and others, while maintaining close tolerances. For a free quote or to discuss your project, call us today at (610)-926-3245 or email site2@readingplastic.com.
