Bakhresa Group Installs Flowshield Floors

The USD800 million food producer Bakhresa Group specified a hardwearing epoxy floor as part of its recent renovation project to turn an ageing Durban facility into a state-of-the-art flour mill.

Bakhresa knew that the floor coating would need to maintain a hygienic surface despite the challenging working conditions that are unavoidable within large-scale food production facilities, which can include heavy equipment, intense cleaning regimes, corrosive by-products, thermal shock and frequent foot traffic.

To ensure the floor was up to the task, a combination of high performance resin solutions from Flowcrete South Africa was chosen for the revitalised flour mill.

The resilient, self-smoothing epoxy flooring system Flowshield SL was applied within the mill’s critical production area. The ability of Flowshield SL to withstand high mechanical and chemical stress made it the perfect fit for this part of the site, as it will be able to maintain a seamless finish in the face of Bakhresa’s busy daily workload.

The joint-free, impervious nature of this system makes it a hygiene asset within food and beverage facilities, as it leaves no hard-to-clean gaps for bacteria, mould, mildew and fungi to get trapped within. Instead, any dirt or grime can be quickly and easily washed away by the site’s cleaning routine, minimising the risk of contamination incidents.

The non-critical areas of the site, such as the warehouse, packaging and logistics spaces, were coated with the epoxy resin finish Flowshield SL 1000. This system would provide the same hygienic and aesthetic properties as the production room floor but it could be thinner in these areas as it would not have to endure such rigorous conditions.

In total, 11,000m² of resin materials were required to bring the facility’s floor up to the necessary standard. Flowcrete South Africa supplied all the systems in a custom Sand Yellow colour in order to meet the client’s aesthetic requirements.

Bakhresa chose Flowcrete for the project, as it was aware that the resin specialist had a long history of supplying food and beverage producers with floors designed to overcome the industry’s multiple challenges.     

As well as being able to provide floors that met the various practical demands across Bakhresa’s new site, Flowcrete South Africa was the only manufacturer that was able to deliver the materials quickly enough to meet the renovation’s strict deadline.

Flowshield SL is ideal for businesses that want to limit the time required to complete a flooring project, as it can be quickly installed and its fast cure formulation avoids long waiting periods where it is impossible to walk across the site or send in follow-on trades.