Resin-Set Brushware vs. Standard Hygiene Brushware: An honest comparison

Breaking down the pros and cons of resin-set and standard hygiene brushware for use in the food industry.

Occasionally, food production and hygiene teams come to Klipspringer asking for resin-set brushware. Normally, this is when one of their auditors or customers have specified it as a way of improving bristle retention or hygiene.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at the concept of resin-set brushware alongside Klipspringer’s standard hygiene brushware, touching on the pros and cons of each, so that you can decide what’s best for you.

We also want to be upfront and say that, at Klipspringer, we supply both resin-set and non-resin-set hygiene brushware, and hold these in stock for same-day despatch to our 4000+ food industry customers. It is important that you assess the risks and food safety needs of your site processes, along with your audit standard stipulations, when deciding which brush type is right for you.

Resin-Set Brushware

To start with, we’ll take a look at how resin-set brushes are designed.

The brush head, or stock, is manufactured with a lowered central section, with a raised lip around the edge. Once the bristles are inserted into the brush head, resin is simply floated over the bristles in the lower section, and left to set around the bristle clumps, as shown in the image below.

On the positive side, the resin can help to seal the bristle holes from potential penetration by bacteria and other harmful microorganisms. This is the purpose it was originally designed for, and can speed up the cleaning and sanitisation process of your brushes.

Resin can also help to secure the edge bristles of the clumps in place, so that if the bristle anchorage is not fully secure, these bristles are less likely to fall out during use.

However, none of the resin used in any resin-set brushware on the market is directly food-contact approved. This is a problem if the brushes you are using are likely to come into contact with open product.

In addition, the resin can be prone to flake off when in use, presenting a foreign body contamination risk from flaking material that is clear in colour, and hence very difficult to identify in any visual quality check.

Resin-set brushes are also much more expensive than standard hygiene brushware, due to the more intensive manufacturing process involved.

Lastly, contrary to popular belief, the resin-set method makes little or no difference to the strength of the overall bristle retention of the brush, as the resin is only in contact with the outer bristles in each clump of bristles. The majority of the bristles are therefore still relying on the strength of their anchorage within the brush head.

Plus, most foreign body issues relating to bristle contamination are as a result of bristles being snagged or cut by machinery, and not due to bristles simply falling out. Resin-set brushes have no way of reducing this risk.

Standard Hygiene Brushware

The cons listed above are the reason why the majority of Klipspringer’s customers across food production facilities choose our standard hygiene brushware range, for both non-food contact and food-contact applications.

As well as being completely food-contact approved, Klipspringer’s standard hygiene brushware is designed specifically to have the strongest possible bristle retention, using high-density brush bodies which are moulded under the highest possible pressure so as to eliminate weak spots or bubbles in the brush heads.

In addition to this, the bristles are inserted into the bodies at high speed and heat, securing the bristles into the brush heads in such a strong way that any bristle loss that does ever occur is almost exclusively always due to bristles being snapped and snagged by machinery, rather than bristles falling out or coming loose; neither resin-set or any other bristle retention methods are able to prevent snapping or snagging.

Secondly, there is a much wider range of brushware products available in the standard hygiene range, compared with resin-set, giving more flexibility to choose the right brush for the particular application.

While there may be a slightly higher chance of bristle clumps becoming clogged, the impact of resin is minimal, and with appropriate sanitisation/cleaning processes in place for hygiene equipment, this is unlikely to be necessary.

In Conclusion

So, there’s an overview of the pros and cons of resin-set brushware alongside Klipspringer’s range of standard hygiene brushware.  Ultimately, the choice is yours based on the risks and applications associated with your purchase, however we hope this has given you a balanced view of our feedback based on supporting over 4000+ food and beverage sites across the UK & Ireland, and around 22 years in the industry!

Both ranges are available to view and purchase online at klipspringer.com, and if you require further support with your brushware, don’t hesitate to contact the Klipspringer team!

Klipspringer's hygiene range:

  • Wide range of colours and types available
  • Lower cost
  • Secure bristle anchorage
  • Food contact approved
  • Possible lower microbiological barrier around bristle clumps

Resin-set brushes:

  • Further safeguard against bristle loss if bristle anchorage is poor
  • Partial barrier to microbiological penetration of bristle clumps
  • Limited choice of colours and types
  • Not food contact approved
  • Higher cost
  • Potential foreign body hazard

Need support with your hygiene equipment or brushware requirements?

Reach out to the Klipspringer team on 01473 461 800 or via our Contact page.


Klipspringer Launches Food Safety Innovation Conference 2023

Klipspringer and FoodClean launch Food Safety Innovation Conference 2023 event

Klipspringer are very excited to reveal an all-new networking event for the food industry, to be held at the University of Lincoln on Tuesday 5th September 2023:

The Food Safety Innovation Conference

The product of months of careful planning and organisation, Klipspringer are launching this event to break the mold of traditional conferences and food safety events.

Alongside innovative cleaning and hygiene business FoodClean, this industry first will be hosted at the University of Lincoln, one of the key locations for professional food manufacturing training.

With the full agenda and speaker line-up still to be revealed, the event promises to be unmissable for hygiene, technical and food safety managers from across the food manufacturing and retail spaces, including C-suite and group roles.

The agenda will include:

  • Focused group workshops: Make new industry connections and explore your challenges.
  • Individual presentations: Tactical insights, based on real experiences.
  • Panel discussions: Topics not covered before from fresh industry voices.

Ready to find out more?

View full event details, book your ticket(s) and keep up to date with the event schedule by clicking the button below.

Visit FSI Conference Website

In-House Thermometer Verification Methods Explained

Whenever temperature plays a role in the food safety or quality of a product, checking thermometer calibration is a critical part of the technical department’s routine.

For some it’s daily and for others it’s weekly. Whichever it is, there are three main ways technical and quality teams throughout the world do this:

Ice & Boiling Water

For many years, ice and boiling water was the favorite method, mainly due to the fact it was the only option!

Although it seems simple and inexpensive, it has several downfalls which compromise both its accuracy and safety for use in the modern food factory.

  • Low cost
  • Check multiple probes at once
  • Temperatures are constantly increasing or decreasing, requiring an additional reference thermometer
  • Difficult to obtain consistent, repeatable results
  • Health & safety risk from boiling water
  • Takes significant time to set up, carry out and clear up.

Test Caps

Test caps are a quick and convenient way to check thermometer units, doing away with many of the problems presented by ice and boiling water.

Are they really the straightforward solution that they seem?

  • Safe to use
  • Fast checking process with no set up required
  • Not suitable for thermometers with integral probes
  • Every test cap needs externally calibrating to UKAS standard each year
  • Test caps simulate the electrical current of a probe. 20 years’ worth of data shows that the majority of thermometer accuracy issues are with the probe, so if the thermometer is perfect but the probe is not reading correctly, test caps will not identify this.

The LazaPort Family

Klipspringer launched the first Lazaport into the food industry as a safer, faster and more accurate way to check probe thermometers on site.

20 years on, Klipspringer is launching the third generation model to further improve the efficiency and compliance of on-site temperature calibration.

  • Calibrates probe and thermometer together at 0 and 100°C
  • Rapid process to check multiple probes at once, with minimal set-up required
  • Traceable to UKAS standard and accurate to +/- 0.3°C
  • No separate reference thermometer required
  • Also calibrates infrared thermometers
  • Adjustable for different probe dimensions and types

Interested to find out more about how the LazaPort works, and what benefits it could bring to your team?