How Quorn Foods solved it’s floor cleaning problem for good
When the machines that keep your production facility clean start letting you down, the consequences go far beyond a dirty floor. For Quorn Foods, part of the Marlow Foods Group, an ageing fleet of scrubber dryers had become a genuine business risk. Inconsistent cleaning, unpredictable repair bills and the looming anxiety of a BRCGS audit were all pointing to the same conclusion: something had to change.
Here is how we helped them fix it.
The Problem With "Making Do"
It is a situation we see more often than you might think. A fleet of floor scrubbers that were perfectly adequate when they were new have gradually become a liability. Machines go down waiting for parts. Batteries fail without warning. Maintenance costs creep up year on year. And each time a machine sits idle, the daily clean does not happen, which in a food production environment is not just inconvenient, it is a compliance issue.
For Quorn Foods, the breaking point was a combination of all three. Repair spend had spiked significantly as the machines aged. Battery replacement costs alone were eye-watering. And when a machine was out of action, the options were to wait for it or revert to manual cleaning methods like sweeping and mopping, neither of which is a realistic answer in a facility running round the clock.
The risk of a hygiene gap showing up during a BRCGS audit was not something anyone wanted to think about too hard.
A Smarter Way to Look at the Numbers
When Quorn Foods came to us, the conversation quickly moved away from simply replacing the machines. The real issue was not the equipment itself. It was the unpredictability that surrounded it.
A standard contract hire gives you the machine. What it does not always give you is certainty. Service intervals of every six months might look fine on paper, but in a demanding production environment, that is a long time between check-ups.
We proposed something different. Instead of six-monthly servicing, we moved to a bi-monthly maintenance schedule, with full parts, labour and travel included, batteries and chargers covered, and a guaranteed 24-hour on-site engineer response time if anything went wrong between visits. All of this on a fixed monthly cost, locked in for five years.
The Finance Director now knows exactly what floor cleaning will cost through to 2030. No surprises. No emergency call-out charges. No budget conversations mid-year because a battery bank has failed.
The Equipment: Viper Fang 24T
The old fleet was replaced entirely with Viper Fang 24T battery scrubber dryers. These are built for exactly this kind of intensive, continuous use. They are straightforward to operate, which reduces the chances of operator errors causing damage in the first place, and the transaxle and vacuum systems are proven to hold up well under heavy daily use.
For a site where the machines are working every single shift, reliability is not a nice-to-have. It is the whole point.
The Outcome
Since making the switch, Quorn Foods have not suffered machine failures which have impacted production, any time a machine has had an issue, which will occasionally happen as a scrubber dryer is like a car and even with preventative maintenance can occasionally have an issue, it has been swiftly repaired and immediately returned to the operating fleet for daily use.
Cleaning operatives can cover their designated areas every shift without interruption. There are no down days, no emergency repairs, and no last-minute anxiety before an audit visit.
Andrew Lumley, Hygiene Leader at Quorn Foods, put it well:
"The transition to a fully maintained contract has removed a massive headache for us. We no longer worry about downtime, machinery breakdowns, battery life or repair costs. We just have clean, dry floors every single shift. It's the most cost-effective way to manage hygiene in a 24/7 environment."
Is This the Right Approach for Your Site?
A fully maintained contract hire arrangement is not the right answer for every business. But if you are running a production environment where cleanliness is non-negotiable, and where an unexpected breakdown has real consequences, it is worth having the conversation.
The total cost often works out more favourably than people expect, especially once you factor in the hidden spend that tends to accumulate around an ageing fleet: reactive repairs, batteries, call-out charges and the cost of time lost to manual workarounds.
If you would like to talk through what this could look like for your facility, get in touch with the CFM North East team.
