Raising Conveying Standards
Jesse Hawkins, Account Manager, Bakery and Snack at Intralox, explains how smarter conveyor belt selection is helping snack manufacturers improve food safety, uptime and operational resilience
From a snack manufacturer’s perspective, how does taking a risk‑based approach to conveyor belt selection change the way food safety, uptime, and operational reliability are managed across the plant?
A risk-based mindset transforms conveyor belt selection from a basic procurement decision into a strategic operational tool. Rather than assuming that belts are simply interchangeable components, manufacturers begin evaluating each conveying application based on its specific exposure points – such as microbial risk, sanitation access, foreign material potential, or mechanical stress.
This is increasingly important in an environment where the pressure to “do more with less” continues to intensify. Snacks plants are expected to produce more product for longer durations, with fewer planned sanitation windows, fewer maintenance personnel, and often fewer overall resources. When we partner with customers to understand their risk-based criteria, we help them prioritise belt choices that improve food safety, maximise uptime, and strengthen reliability across all zones of the plant.
This approach has contributed to the widespread adoption of hygienic, high-performance options like Intralox ThermoDrive®, which is valued for its easy sanitation, rapid drying, and ability to withstand temperature fluctuations and abrasive ingredients such as seasonings and salt. By selecting belts based on quantified risk rather than habit or convenience, snack manufacturers gain a safer, more predictable, and more efficient operation.
Many snack producers still treat belts as interchangeable components. What risks does this mindset introduce, and how can choosing the right long‑term belt partner help mitigate them?
When belts are viewed as simple interchangeable parts, critical risks often go unnoticed. This mindset can lead to food safety vulnerabilities due to poor hygienic design, increased contamination potential, and insufficient sanitation access. It also increases the likelihood of unplanned downtime, premature belt failure, and operational inefficiencies caused by stretch, tracking issues, or buildup.
Intralox was founded on the principle of solving conveying challenges through invention, innovation, and engineering expertise – not commodity components. Through our direct to customer business model, we gain deep visibility into our customers’ processes, bottlenecks, and pain points. That understanding allows us to convert recurring issues into opportunities for technological advancement.
By working with a long-term belt partner rather than a parts vendor, manufacturers benefit from ongoing application support, proven problem-solving, and belt technologies designed to optimise performance. This alignment leads to enhanced productivity, reduced risk, and measurable economic advantages.
Snack facilities often include frying, cooling, seasoning, incline conveying, and packaging areas. Why is it important to work with a supplier that can support nearly every zone of the plant rather than a collection of specialist vendors?
Snack plants are complex environments where each zone plays a critical role in ensuring product quality, consistency, and safety. Selecting different suppliers for each part of the process may appear practical on the surface, but it can introduce challenges in compatibility, communication, accountability, and long-term reliability.
A growing trend in food manufacturing is to source turnkey or integrated solutions from a single, capable supplier. This simplifies project execution, reduces engineering and integration challenges, and limits the overall risk profile of the project. For OEM partners and integrators, consolidating suppliers reduces complexity and ensures they are working with reliable, high-quality technologies.
For snack manufacturers, partnering with Intralox means gaining access to a global infrastructure capable of supporting nearly every area of the plant. Because we innovate across conveying applications – from processing through packaging – we help ensure consistent performance, harmonised belt selection, and streamlined change management across the entire facility.
How does hygienic design – such as clean‑in‑place capability and the elimination of belt stretch or tracking issues – directly impact food safety performance in snack manufacturing?
Hygienic design is foundational to modern snack manufacturing. As we often hear from our colleagues at Commercial Food Sanitation®, an Intralox company, “If you can’t see it, you can’t clean it.” Accessible, visible, and easy to sanitise equipment significantly reduces food safety risks.
Intralox clean in place (CIP) systems help automate sanitation by targeting strategic cleaning zones consistently, even in hard-to-reach areas. Our positive drive, tensionless belt technologies further support hygiene by eliminating common failure points like tracking issues, belt stretch, and hidden harborage areas. These features improve sanitation efficiency, reduce water and energy usage, and help manufacturers achieve more reliable cleaning outcomes.
Together, these design principles help plants maintain strong food safety performance while reducing labor, downtime, and operational risk.
Read the full interview in our latest issue here
