A Robot Halved This Poultry Plant's Cleaning Water—and It Pays for Itself in Under Two Years
Published on 10/10/2026 at 23:50 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical plants face tightening hygiene rules, and equipment suppliers are responding on two fronts: hardware tough enough to survive daily washdowns, and cleaning methods that use far less water.
Gearboxes and Panel PCs Built to Take a Hosing
Repeated hot-water and high-pressure cleaning punishes machine components. Manufacturers have answered with sealed enclosures rated to IP69K—the highest protection class against close-range, high-temperature water jets.
MSF-VATHAUER of Detmold sells stainless-steel geared motors in AISI 304 and AISI 316L through its Hygienics line, alongside stainless-steel frequency converters, all reaching up to IP69K. The units target conveyor systems, filling lines and meat or dairy processing, and arrive pre-configured for both new plants and retrofits of existing drives.
Control hardware is following the same path. ICO Innovative Computer GmbH, based in Diez, offers the Custom Hygrolion WP3, a fanless stainless-steel panel PC fully protected to IP69K. It comes with capacitive multitouch displays at 15.6, 21.5 and 23.8 inches, 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB M.2 SSD. Buyers choose between an Intel Celeron J6412 and an Intel Core i5–1235U depending on computing needs.
Cutting Water, Then Cutting the Cord
Kärcher tackles grease-heavy zones in food operations with the HD 8/12–4 MX Food, a mobile cold-water high-pressure cleaner. It accepts inlet water up to 80 °C straight from the mains, enabling thermal grease removal without exhaust emissions. Running at 120 bar and 800 l/h, a lance control adjusts pressure and water volume on the fly.
Automation goes further at the Fraunhofer IVV, whose mobile cleaning robot Exo-MCD was tested over three days at a poultry processor on an area measuring eight by three metres. After path optimisation, the robot cut water consumption from roughly 960 litres for manual cleaning to just under 480 litres, completing the job in 72 minutes.
ATP hygiene readings after the runs stayed below the limit of 500 relative light units. With a purchase price of about 120,000 euros, the researchers calculate a payback period of under two years across 250 operating days and a six-hour shift, since the robot relieves 1.25 full-time equivalents.
Biofilms, Desinfection and a Diamond-Electrode Experiment
Process water and disinfection are drawing attention alongside mechanical methods. At its congress in Vienna, the water management working group of the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) discussed the threat posed by biofilms, which can serve as a reservoir for listeria or salmonella. Under Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004, operators are obliged to rule out contamination from the transfer point onward.
Austrian firm BioTech Aqua Solution GmbH is testing a different route to germ reduction. Its BLUE SurfaceCleaner system, which entered a trial installation at the Pannonia education campus at the end of September 2026, uses diamond electrodes to produce a disinfectant from water and salt. Laboratory tests achieved a reduction of pathogens by up to 99.9999 percent, at production costs below one euro per litre.
