Polyurethane Flooring: The Future Of Flooring In The Food And Beverage Industry
By Thomas MacIntosh
One element in construction that the food and beverage industry has often overlooked is their flooring. But one must realize that how one lays his floor is crucial on two aspects – safety and hygiene. While many leading players like Stouffer's, Nestle', Kraft, Parmalat, Heinz, Nabisco, Cargill, Coca-Cola have gone ahead with polyurethane flooring, it is yet to become the benchmark for many smaller players. And this is because many are still not aware of the product.

But it is not a technology that has been developed recently. In fact, it has been over two decades that ICI Chemicals, the leaders in polymer technology, who developed this new kind of flooring. Their innovative team came up with a flawless technology that provided impact, chemical and thermal shock resistance for industrial floors. Moreover, they were non-toxic, odorless and could be installed quickly. While epoxy flooring, which was developed much before this particular flooring, is porous, polyurethane flooring is completely non-porous. In addition to that, the polyurethane flooring structure has been matched so closely with the structure of concrete, that their coefficient of expansion is almost the same. All these make polyurethane flooring much better than any other kind of flooring available today.

Bacteriological issues are something of very important concern to the food safety decision makers today. Since bacteria is not something

visible to the naked eye and only a microscopic study will reveal their presence, any kind of flooring may look clean when we undertake a rudimentary and visual examination. But a close inspection would reveal that in other floorings, the minute pores and fissures are literally the breeding grounds of bacteria. Polyurethane flooring, without any pores have no such issues.

But polyurethane flooring has one problem which stops it from getting widespread acceptance. And that is the extreme levels of skill and perfection that is required in laying the floor. It is only professionals who are highly skilled who can handle this particular kind of flooring. As their numbers are limited, and consequently their price is higher. So many smaller firms are not sure about installing polyurethane flooring.

The other problem is that many floor contractors do not want to lose out on their regular income of routinely recoating their client’s premises. Since the polyurethane flooring is supposed to last for years without any repair or replacement, they of course in a way harm the floor contractor’s commercial interests.

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