Gatineau's Food-Grade Epoxy Flooring Built for Compliance
Production floors in federally inspected facilities take daily punishment: scalding wash-down water, lactic and acetic acid spills, caustic sanitizers, and CFIA or USDA auditors checking every wall-floor junction. Gatineau Concrete installs urethane cement and food-rated epoxy systems with integrated cove base, full documentation, and a free written estimate before any work begins.
Why Food-Grade Epoxy Floors Are a Category of Their Own
A standard industrial epoxy floor is built to resist forklift traffic and light chemical exposure. A food-grade floor has to do something harder: pass a federal inspection. That means a seamless, pore-free surface that can be fully disinfected, resistance to the organic acids and hot caustic sanitizers used in daily wash-down cycles, and a coved wall-floor junction that leaves no crevice for bacteria to survive between cleaning shifts.
Urethane cement is the material that checks those boxes in most production environments. It absorbs the thermal shock when 82°C wash-down water hits a cold concrete slab, holds up against lactic acid from dairy spills and acetic acid from pickling lines, and bonds to the cove base detail that CFIA and USDA inspectors look for at every wall transition. A food-rated topcoat seals the surface and keeps it cleanable for the life of the floor.
Gatineau Concrete supplies the material data sheets, install records, and maintenance protocol your compliance officer needs on file. See the broader USDA/CFIA compliant flooring page for full-spec options, or review chemical-resistant flooring for adjacent non-food zones. The Sika floor systems we use carry independent food-contact certifications. Questions about project cost? The concrete cost guide covers industrial floor pricing.
Recent work
How it works
From Slab Assessment to Audit-Ready Food-Grade Floor
Site assessment and spec selection
Before any grinding starts, we walk the production zones with the plant manager or QA lead. We note the wash-down temperature, the sanitizer chemistry (caustic, acid, or both), any product-specific exposures like fats or sugars, and the cove base height the applicable standard requires. That information drives the system selection.
Concrete slab preparation
The existing slab is diamond-ground to the surface profile the urethane cement manufacturer specifies. Failed coatings, grease contamination, and surface laitance are removed completely. Cracks and spalled areas are repaired with food-compatible bonding materials before the new system goes down.
Urethane cement and cove base installation
The urethane cement is hand-troweled across the floor at the engineered thickness, then carried up each wall as a monolithic cove base to the spec height. No seam exists between the floor and the wall surface, which is the detail inspectors check first. The result is a single continuous surface across the entire cleaning path.
Topcoat, cure, and compliance handoff
A food-rated topcoat is applied once the urethane cement has reached the required cure stage. We then compile the full documentation package: material data sheets, as-built cove dimensions, install date, and a compatible-cleaner list for your sanitation team. The file is ready before the floor goes back into production.
What inspectors look for
Audit-Ready Documentation Included on Every Install
When a CFIA or USDA inspector arrives, the floor itself is only part of what gets reviewed. They also check whether the facility can produce records showing what system was installed, how it was applied, what the cove base dimensions are, and what cleaning chemicals are approved for use on the surface. Facilities that cannot produce those records on the spot face findings even when the floor looks fine.
Every food-grade epoxy install Gatineau Concrete completes includes a documentation package assembled for exactly that scenario. Material data sheets, install method records, cove base as-built dimensions, and a maintenance protocol listing compatible sanitizers are all compiled and handed to the plant's compliance lead before the zone reopens. No scrambling at audit time.
This documentation approach carries across related work: coved base flooring systems for facilities adding cove to existing floors, freezer floor installs where thermal cycling adds another compliance layer, and concrete joint filling in packaging areas where open joints create harborage points. The concrete blog covers maintenance intervals and inspection prep in more detail.
Compliance, wash-down chemistry, cove base and inspection documentation.
Urethane cement handles the thermal shock of hot wash-down better than standard epoxy and resists the organic acid and caustic combinations common in food production. For most federally-inspected food zones, urethane cement is the standard answer.
Spec varies by facility type and inspection jurisdiction; typically several inches up the wall. We confirm the required height with the compliance officer or food safety lead before installing.
Yes, by phasing around production zones. Each zone is offline during install and cure, with production routed around the work zone. The phasing plan is built into the project plan from quote stage.
Typically a week per zone including cure before food contact, with the specific timeline depending on zone size and complexity. We work with operations to time the install around scheduled cleaning days where possible.
Yes. Material specs, install method, cove base dimensions, and maintenance protocol are documented and delivered with the project. Your compliance file is ready for inspection from day one of operations.
Client reviews
What Gatineau Operations Say About Their Food-Grade Floors
Urethane cement install across our production zones, USDA inspection passed first time with the documentation we had ready. The compliance side mattered as much as the install quality.
Z. F5
Plant Manager, Gatineau Food Processor
★★★★★
Cove base at every wall transition, seamless surface across the production floor. Disinfection takes less time, swab tests came back cleaner than before. Worth the right spec.
Y. F5
QA Director, Ottawa
★★★★★
Phased install across our cells, production continued in the rest of the facility throughout. Each cell back to food contact on the cure schedule. Real coordination.
Q. G5
Food Production Operations, Barrhaven
★★★★★
They knew the CFIA spec cold, installed accordingly, documentation supports our annual inspection. The expertise was specific to food, not generic industrial.
X. F5
Bakery Director, Nepean
From the blog
Concrete Guides & Articles
Practical reading on planning, finishes and caring for concrete in Gatineau.
Share the facility type, the production zones needing new flooring, your wash-down schedule, and the compliance standard that applies. Gatineau Concrete will spec the right urethane cement or food-rated epoxy system and put the full quote in writing.
