Masterflex AG, Gelsenkirchen, July 2009
Due to irritations caused by the distribution of a newsletter of one of our competitors, we consider it necessary once again to provide some explanatory notes on the subject of "PU spiral hoses for the food industry".
It is a fact that Masterflex AG has been in possession of an approval for Master-Food hoses according to EN 2002/72/EC since March 3, 2006. The supplementary directive EN 2007/19/EC has been fulfilled since 20.09.2007.
At Masterflex AG, the focus is always on the safety of the products with all their individual components. This concerns both the plastic and also the wire spirals and connecting elements used. For this reason, Masterflex decided several years ago to manufacture all Master-Food hoses exclusively with stainless steel wires.
The wheat is separated from the chaff when it comes to hose spirals
Some manufacturers of hoses for the food industry still offer normal steel spirals, plastic-coated steel spirals and copper-coated wire spirals on the market, which are anything but harmless from a food safety point of view. After all, abrasion can expose the spirals, which then oxidize or copper particles in food are the result. Acids attack copper and cause it to form salts. There are migration limits for all copper salts in Directive 2005/79/EU, an amending Directive to 2002/72/EC. This means that they may only be detected in very low concentrations in the transported foodstuff.
For this reason, Masterflex has been consistently using stainless steel spirals for several years, as these are even approved for direct contact with foodstuffs.
At this point, we would like to emphasize once again that we use only harmless raw materials for the production of Master-Food hoses. Of course, we have declared these in the course of certifying the hoses and connection elements.