Food manufacturers invest heavily in protecting product quality. Production processes are carefully controlled. Surfaces are cleaned and sanitized. Hygiene procedures are continuously reviewed. Yet one area often receives significantly less attention: The air moving throughout the facility.
According to Zehnder Clean Air Solutions, airborne contamination remains one of the least visible – and most underestimated – challenges in food production today.
While contamination risks are often associated with direct product contact, fine airborne particles generated during production can travel far beyond their original source, moving through shared environments and potentially affecting product quality, operational performance and audit confidence.
Looking Beyond Visible Cleanliness
A facility can appear clean while airborne contamination continues to circulate. Powders, flour, seasonings, sugar dust, grain particles and other fine materials can remain suspended in the air for extended periods before settling elsewhere in the facility.
This movement is often difficult to identify through visual inspections alone. As a result, contamination may spread beyond the production process where it originated, creating challenges that are not always immediately obvious.
"Many manufacturers have robust hygiene procedures and strong cleaning routines," says Kevin Rohrbach, Head of North America at Zehnder Clean Air Solutions.
"The challenge is that airborne particles don't always stay where they are created. They move with airflow, production activity and people. That means contamination risks can exist between processes, between zones and in areas that appear clean."
Zehnder Clean Air Solutions
More Than a Food Safety Issue
The impact of airborne contamination extends beyond food safety alone. Facilities managing elevated airborne particulate levels may also experience:
- Increased cleaning requirements
- Dust accumulation on equipment and infrastructure
- Additional maintenance costs
- Product quality concerns
- Allergen management challenges
- Reduced confidence during audits and inspections
- Operational disruption caused by contamination control measures
In many cases, these issues develop gradually over time, making them easy to overlook as part of normal operations.
"Plant managers rarely describe this as an air quality problem," says Rohrbach.
"They experience it as more cleaning, more maintenance, more housekeeping pressure and more effort to maintain consistent production conditions."
The Challenge of Contamination Between Zones
One of the biggest misconceptions in food manufacturing is that contamination remains where it is generated.
In reality, airborne particles can move between production areas, follow airflow patterns and reach parts of the facility not directly involved in the original process. This is particularly relevant when managing allergens, powders and other fine particulate materials.
Even facilities with strong process controls may find it difficult to fully understand how airborne contamination behaves throughout the wider environment.
As food safety expectations continue to increase, many manufacturers are beginning to look beyond surfaces and processes alone, placing greater emphasis on understanding environmental conditions across the facility.
Zehnder Clean Air Solutions
Understanding Your Risk
To help manufacturers better understand potential airborne contamination risks, Zehnder Clean Air Solutions has developed a free food safety risk assessment.
The assessment provides a practical way for food manufacturers to evaluate how contamination may be moving through their facility and identify areas that could benefit from closer investigation.
The assessment can be completed in under three minutes and provides immediate feedback based on operational and environmental factors commonly associated with airborne contamination risks.
Food manufacturers can access the assessment here.
Zehnder Clean Air Solutions helps manufacturers create cleaner, healthier, and more productive working environments through industrial air cleaning solutions.
Clean air protects people, products, processes and performance. By reducing airborne contamination throughout facilities, Zehnder helps manufacturers improve environmental control, strengthen operational performance, and create greater confidence in the spaces where people work every day.
