General requirements for food contact materials, Regulation 1935/2004.

Materials, surfaces and equipment must be accompanied by documentation confirming compliance with the requirements. The suitability of materials and surfaces for their intended use, taking into account the various requirements established by the circumstances or the product being processed, is determined by the requirements for surfaces and materials.

Durable, non-corrosive, easy to clean, disinfectable, and not prone to chipping, flaking or other wear during use that could result in foreign matter entering foodstuffs are ideal for the manufacture of components and accessories for food production equipment.

Materials must not dissolve anything in food that could spoil the product, be non-absorbent where possible, and must not cause changes in taste, smell or other undesirable changes in food.

The surfaces of equipment intended for the food industry must ensure hygiene and be as smooth as possible, seamless and with the smoothest possible surface. Due to washability and biofilm formation, materials in contact with food must be as smooth as possible. Different surface roughness values can be achieved during production using various processes and treatment stages, such as polishing. The surface roughness of cold-rolled stainless steel is ideal, even without polishing.

When designing food equipment, it is impossible to do without the harmonized standard EN 1672-2 "Food equipment. Fundamentals. Part 2: Hygiene requirements."

Designers must take into account the requirements of Regulation 10/2011 on plastic materials in contact with food, as they may be used in production.

In order to achieve the required level of quality and performance of machine-building products, the designer must have the necessary basic information (critical information) in addition to standards and regulations. This information is reviewed together with the customer, in which case the necessary experts are involved, such as the person responsible for cleaning machines and equipment, the supplier of cleaning agents, and the machine operator or the person responsible for using the machines. This provides information about possible future problem situations that have been encountered before, allowing them to be resolved at the design stage.

Critical information includes:

- The type of premises in which the machine or equipment will be located, e.g. clean rooms.

- Technological conditions in the design area, e.g. temperature, pH, alkalis, etc.

- The product being processed and its properties, e.g. solid or liquid state

- Methods and detergents used

- Sufficient IP protection class for electrical equipment, e.g. IP 66 is also sufficient for so-called foam cleaning, in which machines are first treated with foam containing detergent and then rinsed with pressurized water.

- Ensuring hygiene and the ability to wash machines and equipment.

For machines and mechanisms intended for food production, the manufacturer draws up and signs a declaration of conformity confirming that the products comply with the requirements of Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery and equipment. The CE marking is applied. For some product groups, before affixing the CE marking, a third party inspection is required, which carries out type approval and assessment of the model's compliance with safety requirements. These include machines falling under the requirements of Annex 4, for which a certificate issued by a notified body of the European Union is mandatory. A declaration of conformity of components and assemblies with the requirements of Regulation 1935/2004 and Regulation 10/2011 is mandatory.

Regulation 2023/1230 on machinery and mechanisms will come into force in 2027.