PUMPS 201
From Fundamentals to Durability
How hygienic pump design is evolving to meet modern processing demands.
Chris Sinutko | SPX FLOW, an ITT Company
| IMAGE 1: Worker inspecting production line at a food processing facility (image credit: Wanwajee - stock.adobe.com)
The previous article, Pumps 101: Mastering the Fundamentals of Sanitary Pumps, explored why disciplined pump selection, hygienic design and routine maintenance remain essential in food and beverage processing. The core message was simple: No amount of downstream technology can compensate for weak fundamentals at the heart of a process.
While that has not changed, one thing that has is how those fundamentals are being applied. As processors push for higher throughput, faster changeovers and longer run times, attention is shifting to how equipment is built and how long it performs in real conditions. Today’s progress is less about adding layers of technology and more about improving durability, materials and system design to support reliable operation.
Durability as a Design Requirement
Modern food processing is more demanding than it was a decade ago. Cleaning chemicals, longer operating cycles and new or reformulated products with more abrasive particulates add stress to pumps, seals and internal surfaces. Combine that with higher protein concentrations or sticky confectionary products, and manufacturing equipment faces more wear and tear than ever before.
For example, a large candy company had a new product that featured small crystals of crushed hard candy. These crystals quickly coated the inside of the pumps, causing them to seize and shut down. A specialized pump had to be designed with unique clearance rotors to accommodate the crystals.
Situations like this are pushing processors to ask more direct questions. How long will this pump last in real service? What fails first? How often will it need to be serviced?
The answer to these questions is not overengineering. Instead, it is about making targeted decisions based on how equipment is used. For example, hygienic twin-screw pumps are often selected where processors need to move shear-sensitive products while also handling higher viscosities, entrained solids or cleaning-in-place cycles within the same system.
Material selection also plays a central role. In applications where abrasion or aggressive cleaning chemicals are present, diffusion-hardened stainless steel components can extend service life by improving resistance to wear while still maintaining the corrosion resistance and cleanability required in hygienic service. The outcome is fewer unplanned interventions, more consistent production and maintenance schedules that are driven by planning rather than surprise.
Hygienic Design & Materials in Practice
Hygienic design has long been viewed primarily through the lens of food safety and regulatory compliance, such as 3-A Sanitary Standards and the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG). While those remain nonnegotiable, forward looking processors are increasingly recognizing hygienic design as an operational efficiency tool because food manufacturers can lose tens of thousands of dollars per hour when machinery is offline for maintenance and cleaning. The disruption is also resource-intensive, using water, chemicals, energy, labor and production time. This is extended when equipment contains unnecessary crevices, complex internal parts or poor drainage capabilities.
This highlights the need for design elements such as full drainability, smooth product-contact surfaces, simplified seal geometries and accessible inspection points to reduce residual product holdup and improve cleanability. Pump architecture that supports true clean-in-place capability without disassembly helps processors avoid excessive worst-case cleaning strategies.
Material selection is just as important. Abrasive ingredients and aggressive cleaning regimes often act together, accelerating wear on seal faces, rotors and housing surfaces. To address this, many processors are specifying higher-performance materials and surface treatments that can handle both chemical exposure and mechanical wear. Higher alloy stainless materials, diffusion-hardened components, improved elastomer and seal compatibility and tighter surface finish control all contribute to longer service life without sacrificing hygiene.
When design and materials are aligned with the process, cleaning becomes more consistent, and equipment performs more predictably across both production and sanitation cycles.
Modern food processing is more demanding than it was a decade ago.
Supporting Innovation at the Pilot & Development Scale
While much attention is placed on large scale production assets, many critical pump selection decisions are made much earlier during pilot, test kitchen and process development phases.
At this stage, processors need small, hygienic pumps that accurately represent full scale behavior while operating at significantly lower flow rates. These systems must handle real product formulations, tolerate frequent changeovers and support rapid iteration without introducing unnecessary complexity or risk.
Smaller positive displacement pumps, valves and even homogenizers are commonly used in these environments. They allow processors to validate product behavior, cleanability and handling characteristics under representative conditions before scaling up.
Equally important, consistency between pilot scale and production scale pump technologies reduces uncertainty. When the same fundamental pumping principles apply across development and manufacturing, process transitions tend to be smoother and more predictable.
Simplification & Standardization in Practice
In many plants, complexity increases over time. New equipment is added to solve specific problems, and systems evolve into a mix of pump types, models and configurations. However, many plants are discovering that some of their most impactful improvements come not from adding complexity, but from removing it.
Recently, a manufacturer of consumer cleaning products did just this. Their production lines used a mix of pump technologies, including air-operated diaphragm pumps, progressive cavity pumps and gear pumps. To standardize operations across five new fill lines, they needed a pump capable of handling a new medium-viscosity oxidizing cleaner.
The solution was adopting a positive displacement pump that featured a durable configuration with nongalling rotors. The design minimized energy consumption and maximized throughput while reducing floor space requirements when compared to the existing pumps. Additionally, the pump required fewer parts, reducing maintenance costs and downtime.
Building on the Basics
The most meaningful breakthroughs in hygienic pumping today are rarely dramatic. Instead, they are steady gains achieved through better materials, more thoughtful design and disciplined application of fundamentals.
As products become more complex and production demands increase, durability, cleanability and consistency take on greater importance. The fundamentals still apply. The difference is how precisely they are executed.
Chris Sinutko is vice president of product management and engineering, nutrition and health for Waukesha Cherry-Burrell at SPX FLOW, an ITT Company. For more information, visit spxflow.com.
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