To date, food plants have been designed primarily for food safety, with hygiene zones to control microbial hazards and segregation to separate allergens.  Following the 9/11 terrorist incident, there has also been a US led requirement to design food plants to resist bioterrorism.  The need for this design approach to control known and perceived hazards was further enforced with the publication of the GFSI 2020 benchmark scopes, JI and JII. 

As a key driver for future plant design, food safety has been joined by customer choice, climate change, power demand and, following the COVID-19 pandemic, food operative respiratory protection. Customer choice will favour vegan, vegetarian and religious based foods, which will lead to an exploration of the concept of ‘what is free-from’ in terms of the segregation of specific ingredients e.g., meat or a particular meat species. Climate change will require protection from weather events e.g., flooding, high winds, high snowfall, drought, but also a proliferation in pest and pathogen varieties and numbers.  Big data, AI, automation, electric vehicles etc. will all lead to enhanced power demands and may require on-site solar panelling or wind farms.  With pandemics estimated to be now every 4 years, together with the need to keep food factories in production, factory design will need to focus on operative separation, directional air flows and humidity/temperature control.