Food & Beverage
Food and beverage processing requires valves and instrumentation that meet strict hygienic standards. FTS supplies sanitary butterfly valves from Tru-Flo, stainless steel ball valves from Flo-Tite, and hygienic process instrumentation for CIP systems, batching, and packaging lines. Our products comply with FDA, 3-A, and USDA requirements for food-contact applications.
Common Valve Applications in Food and Beverage and How FTS Approaches Them
Every food plant runs two valve populations at once. The hygienic population touches product and lives under 3-A and FDA rules. The utility population, which is usually the bigger one, runs the steam, air, glycol, and wastewater that make the plant work. Both of them break, and both of them are how we earn our keep in this industry.
Sanitary process lines
Product-contact valves live under 3-A sanitary standards and FDA 21 CFR 177.2600, which governs every rubber part that repeatedly touches food. The baseline surface finish is 32 microinch Ra, crevice-free. Connections are Tri-Clamp where lines get torn down, butt-weld where they never do, and the elastomer question never goes away: EPDM is the default, PTFE covers steam and temperature, and the wrong seat in an acid CIP loop is a short-lived seat. Ball valves bring a specific hygiene catch, the body cavity around the ball where product can stagnate, and the answer is cavity-filled seats. On three-way diverters, the port arrangement is the whole point: a valve that arrives ported wrong is a return, not a part.
Our sanitary line covers Tri-Clamp and extended butt-weld ball valves, cavity-filled seats, and 3-way diverters, FDA, USDA, and 3-A compliant. We put your flow plan on the purchase order, so the diverter shows up ported the way your process actually runs. One of our customers orders these 25 and 34 at a time with the flow plan written into every line.
CIP, steam, and the utility backbone
Clean-in-place runs hot caustic around 140 to 185 F, then acid, then sanitizer, and every valve in that loop has to shrug off all three. Plant steam has its own rule: steam that touches product or product surfaces must be culinary steam per 3-A Accepted Practice 609, with staged filtration, so the steam system carries real valve and filtration content. Brewing and beverage add glycol chilling, typically a 30 percent propylene glycol loop with solenoid or actuated valves cycling each tank jacket. And under all of it sits compressed air: every pneumatic actuator in the plant hangs on solenoids, filter regulators, and fittings that wear out on a schedule.
The consumable stream is a business we take seriously. Solenoids, NAMUR pilots, filter regulators, coils, seats, packing, and strainer baskets ship from us to the same plants week after week. A major Georgia sugar refinery has bought from us hundreds of times since 2024, most of it exactly this kind of keep-the-line-running hardware.
Washdown is a valve killer
Daily high-pressure, hot, chlorinated washdown destroys ordinary automation hardware. Bare aluminum actuator components corrode in months. Unsealed limit switches fill with water. The spec answer is stainless or engineered-polymer housings, IP69K or NEMA 4X rated accessories, and stainless brackets, chosen before installation rather than after the first corroded teardown.
We build washdown packages as packages: stainless and canister actuators, sealed switches, stainless hardware, assembled and tested here so the whole unit survives the hose, not just the valve.
Solids: where knife gates earn their living
Poultry and protein plants move offal, feathers, and DAF sludge to rendering. Sugar plants move massecuite and molasses that erode seats and solidify in the line. Feed mills move grain and meal. All of it jams ordinary valves, and all of it is knife gate territory: a sharpened gate that shears through fibrous solids, with purge ports and seat designs matched to the media.
Knife gates are our largest single product family. Our Orbinox knife gates run in poultry plants, feed mills, sugar service, and edible-oil processing, from 2 inch through 48 inch, shipped with cylinder, solenoid, and proximity switches mounted and tested. An edible-oil process OEM came to us for 32 inch stainless knife gates for desolventizer service, and we supplied the valves, the spares, and the fail-safe air tanks behind them.
Where FTS fits
Food and beverage is one of the biggest things we do. A Georgia sugar refinery on a standing maintenance rhythm, a global edible-oil processor running our automated stainless packages, poultry processors and their equipment OEMs running our knife gates in offal and pretreatment service. We buy direct from most valve manufacturers in the country, we ship the valve, actuator, solenoid, feedback, and brackets as one tested part number, and we try to turn every quote in 24 hours. Send us one problem valve and judge us on it.
Applications
Products for Food & Beverage
Tru-Flo Valves & Automation
Flo-Tite
Hy-Lok
Krohne USA
Precision Measurements
Need Valves for Food & Beverage?
FTS has been supplying Georgia's food & beverage industry for over 25 years. Tell us about your application and we'll recommend the right products.
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