Keeping food safe is a major concern at busy restaurants. One key is to keep the kitchen and all surfaces clean and sanitized. This includes all employees washing hands regularly, cleaning all surfaces and having food safe cutting stations. At the hub of all the food preparation is the cutting surfaces used to cut food. NSF and FDA have guidelines for keeping food preparation areas clean, and one main component is the cutting board. At home, most people cut some food for dinner and then scrub the cutting board they used before putting it away. In busy restaurants the cutting boards are used constantly throughout the day. During the slow times, kitchen staff takes time to clean. Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. is proud to supply the premium certified HDPE materials designed for restaurant cutting surfaces.
Choose The Proper Cutting Board Material
It is critical to keep hot food safe, and to maintain a clean kitchen. We provide a wide range of sizes, shapes and can include a waste cutout to match your needs. Our most popular cutting board materials are .500 (1/2″) and 1.00″ thick certified HDPE sheet material. We stock this in smooth and textured 2 sided. We also stock the colored cutting board that some restaurants prefer; these include: Yellow (used for chicken), Red (for red meat), Green (for produce) and Tan (for cooked meats). For busy kitchens we offer a auto-replacement program, so you can receive the cutting board replacements on your schedule.
American Made – Quality Food Grade Materials
Our team of suppliers produce high quality performance plastics in a wide range of materials. The HDPE is produced under the trade names: Polystone® Natural by Rochling; King CuttingBoard® by King Plastics; Densetec® HDPE by Polymer Industries; and others.
We have been supporting SoCal restaurants with top quality food grade cutting boards for almost 50 years. Contact us today with your requirements, and we will be happy to help you to keep your kitchen cutting board in great shape.
In a previous post, we explored the advantages of Sabic Ultem™, the trademarked name for a special type of high-performance plastic that is often the go-to choice for any industry in need of exceptional physical properties in a thermoplastic. With Ultem™ polyetherimide resins, this type of plastic can retain its mechanical properties even at extremely high temperatures, which is especially important in applications that require good structural integrity under harsh conditions–aerospace and automotive applications for example.
Why is ULTEM™ so popular?
This material is known for its excellent mechanical properties, dimensional stability, as well as chemical and temperature resistance. Because of these properties, Ultem™ has been used widely and with success in many different industries, such as aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, medical equipment, electronics, and industrial equipment. There are, however, a few disadvantages to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to use Ultem™ for your manufacturing project.
Sabic Ultem 1000 and 2300 sheet and rod
A few disadvantages of using ULTEM™
Also, the polyetherimide thermoplastic can be vulnerable to stress cracking if exposed to polar chlorinated solvents. This can restrict its use in certain applications.
In addition, while Ultem™ is a very high performance thermoplastic, it does tend to be more expensive compared to similar materials and can be difficult to process due to its high melting point and viscosity. For optimal results, you may need to use specialized equipment or work with someone specialized in working with this thermoplastic, which could drive up production costs even more. If the material is not properly controlled during manufacturing, Ultem™ plastic parts can experience surface defects or cracks as well as dimensional instability. If large amounts of material are removed during machining, parts should be annealed after production to prevent warp and twist. Proper quality control needs to be in place to avoid these problems.
Looking for a supplier of high performance thermoplastics?
Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. has been supplying performance plastic sheet, rod, and tube since 1975, and specializes in wholesale Engineering Plastics, Mechanical Plastics, and High Performance Plastics for a wide range of industries. Check out our website to learn more!
Why choose a local Performance Plastic Sheet Supplier
One of the latest trends across many different industries has been the push for supporting local businesses, especially with the events of the pandemic in recent years. However, this isn’t just a trend–choosing to source your plastic from a local plastic sheet supplier is also an excellent and beneficial economic opportunity. There are plenty of advantages to why you should buy your plastic sheets from a local supplier.
Less waste–in time, money, and resources
Choosing to source your plastic from a local supplier means that you not only will support the local economy, but you also often get to bypass many of the expenses associated with importing and exporting international goods. In addition, there are fewer transportation costs, with a local supplier being closer geographically than another supplier might be.
A closer geographical location to you also means that you’ll receive much shorter lead times on your quotes. With less distance to travel, you can receive your plastic sheets much more quickly than if you don’t source them locally.
Improved Environmental Impact
Industrial Plastic Supply of Anaheim California
With reduced transportation comes less environmental impact. This doesn’t just mean less harmful emissions into the atmosphere, but also less use of resources, especially nonrenewable ones like fuel. Less fuel consumption doesn’t just promote the efficient use of resources–it also tends to lead to lower transportation costs as well! Shorter distance–less costs and a smaller carbon footprint.
Better Control over Product and Quality
Often, local plastic suppliers provide much better product quality and customer service, because they take the time to understand the needs and preferences of their customers. The proximity of choosing a local supplier also helps to ensure a timely delivery, reducing the potential for disruptions on your project. They’ll also likely be more available and efficient when serving local customers, able to offer quicker lead times based on the shorter geographical distance.
This insures the best quality materials and timely replenishment of popular items.
Looking for an expert plastic sheet supplier?
Industrial Plastic Supply has been in the business since 1975, located right in the heart of Orange County, CA. Check out our website to see our full inventory of plastic materials.
Best Methods for Choosing a Quality Performance Plastic Sheet and Rod Supplier
Finding a plastic sheet supplier might seem like a monumental task with all the different suppliers out there – but there are a few ways that you can narrow down your choices.
Here are five key factors to consider when you’re looking for a quality supplier of plastic sheets.
1) Where do they source their plastic materials?
With many dozen manufacturers through out North America, and many more in far off lands, it is important to know who makes your material. Material sources from North America has been considered the premier quality in Performance Plastic materials. Not only is the quality of extruded or molded sheets and rods important, but also the long process of secondary annealing. This removes residual stress from the material, and this will produce a better finished part with reduced warp and twist and even center-line cracking. Not only should the materials look good, they must machine well without cracking. Quality matters.
2) Do they carry what you need?
This might seem straightforward, but it is one of the most important things to keep in mind, especially if you’re looking for large-scale products or highly specialized resins. Often, different plastic suppliers will specialize in resins with similar end uses as well, so it’s important that you find one that understands the requirements of your particular industry. Many suppliers are actually ‘brokers’ and don’t really have a warehouse with material ‘in stock’. Look for a supplier that has a wide variety of quality performance plastics in stock and ready for you to pick up.
3) Do they meet your quality standards?
Many plastic suppliers have to meet particular certifications and regulatory compliance standards, especially if they want to maintain a professional and accurate business. The bare minimum for a quality plastic sheet supplier is an updated ISO 9001 quality management system and ITAR compliance, but there are several other standards and material certifications available as well, such as ANSI and RoHS compliance, which ensure that the supplier does not sell or consume unethical products in the course of their business. Are the customer service staff members certified by an outside agency?
4) Don’t forget communication and customer service
Good communication is important in any supplier-customer relationship. A quality plastic sheet supplier will communicate professionally and quickly with you, and they will be transparent about their products, quality certifications and compliance, and their capabilities. Many suppliers have reviews or testimonials on their websites that you can read to get a better idea of their service–or you can contact them directly as well. The best customer service companies have trained staff, in the plastic industry one of the keys to a trained staff would be are they IAPD (International Association of Plastic Distribution) certified?
5) Balance quality and price
With all of the plastic suppliers out there, it’s important to find one that not only meets your standards of quality, but also offers you competitive pricing. Balancing the quality of the material you receive with the budget set out for it is an important task when choosing a plastic supplier. Sourcing all High Performance Plastic materials from North American manufactures helps to insure quality products, and at a competitive price. While not the cheapest, the quality of North American Performance Plastic is second to none!
Choose Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. for your Performance Plastic needs
If you are looking for a quality plastic sheet supplier, then you should consider Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. We have been in the business since 1975 and maintain a vast and varied inventory of performance plastic materials, all sourced from North American Manufacturers, and are proud of our trained customer service staff – all IAPD certified.
Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. also Check out our website to learn more.
Why food safe HDPE plastic replaced glass as the go-to milk container.
Many of you, should you be older than 60, may remember the “Milk Man”. This delivery service from decades ago, was a most common way of transporting milk to the consumer. Back then, suppliers used glass bottles, delivered by this milk man, right to your front door.
HDPE is Food Safe
When looking at alternatives, the milk processing industry found a use and benefit from replacing the glass with a plastic called High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). But what is HDPE, and what are the benefits of using it?
Glass is heavy, HDPE plastic is light
One of the characteristics of this thermoplastic is the weight of the material. The reason this is so beneficial brings us back to the milk jug. Old style glass milk containers could hold 32 oz., with the empty glass weighing 1.25 lbs. An empty gallon water or milk jug (128 oz.) weighs in at only 0.25 lbs, and holds 4 times more volume. When full, the milk jug can hold more volume than the glass bottle without compromising the strength, especially when being transported. This lowers the overall transport time and significantly reduces the cost of shipping.
This drop in weight and large increase in capacity is why the industry made the switch. The attribute of high durability in plastic materials like HDPE is known as the “strength to weight ratio”. As already mentioned, this was a huge benefit from switching to HDPE containers – the impact it has on transport costs. The high impact resistance of the material allows for easy transport. The HDPE jugs can withstand the jarring and bumping that is a natural part of mass transit, with almost zero wear or breakage to the product. Compared to the glass bottle, too hard of a turn or a pothole in the road could lead to the disheartening sound of shattering glass… not an ideal result for the distributing company. The HDPE impact resistance still holds true through out the supply chain, and even when the containers enter a store or home. If a HDPE milk jug should fall, the plastic container may spill, but it won’t cause the harm or damage that glass would. Broken glass poses a hazard and a risk, whereas plastic in this case can be easily cleaned, recycled, and used again.
When discussing this topic, the argument of recycling and sustainability sets its sights on plastics. In reality, the carbon footprint of plastics is much smaller than that of glass. The amount of heat necessary to heat up plastic for recycling is dramatically lower than that of glass, making it more sustainable in the long run. Yes, both are 100% recyclable, but the amount of fuel necessary plays a big factor. The temperature needed for melting and processing HDPE is between 248 and 356°F depending on grade. Whereas glass materials requires a minimum temperature of 2,600°F, according to SeattlePI. As you can see, these temperatures are very different, and shows why the life cycle of plastic is more eco-friendly and a better option to preserve our environment.
Immensely versatile HDPE applications
HDPE has many more uses, like in structural tanks, FDA approved cutting boards and industrial piping systems. This material outweighs most alternatives in benefits due to it’s cost and performance, and is produced in sheet and rod by many major manufacturers in the USA. HDPE plastics are FDA and NSF approved for food applications, making HDPE a food safe product for most food processing and packing applications. For more details on HDPE and it’s benefits see Industrial Plastic Supply or call 866-832-9315
What other applications could benefit from newer and improved materials to make our world safer, cleaner and more efficient?
The history of metals is thought to have begun with the use of copper about 11,000 years ago. Gold, silver, iron, lead, and even some brass began to be used before the first known appearance of bronze in the 5th millennium BCE
Artifacts made of smelted iron have been found dating from about 3000 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In those times, iron was a ceremonial metal; it was far too expensive to be used in everyday life. Metals are commonly very stiff, tough and strong. However, they are also generally quite heavy. Also, the cost to heat metal to production temperatures is extremely high, over 5 times that of Performance Plastic materials. When metals corrode they get smaller, and many can decompose to yield rust.
In comparison, plastics only were first made in the early 1900’s. The world’s first known fully synthetic plastic was bakelite (now days considered Phenolic), and was invented in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekeland who coined the term ‘plastics’. Since this date, thousands of chemists and material scientists have synthesized dozens of plastic base materials. Plastic materials are currently available in over 80 types, and each of these are molded or processed at slightly different temperatures. The wide range of performance plastic materials will allow you to choose the perfect material for your next application.
Some of The Advantages of New Performance Plastic Materials
New Higher Temperature Performance Plastic Materials
New Performance Plastic materials like Victrex 450g PEEK and Sabic Ultem 1000 have much higher use temperatures over previous performance plastic materials. The Ultem 1000 unfilled has a continual use temperature above 400 degrees F, while the newer Victrex 450g PEEK materials work well at 480 degrees F on a continuous basis. In addition to the higher temperatures, they are still food grade materials.
Most plastic materials can typically be molded in a temperature range of 400 to 600 degree F. While steel starts to melt at 2,500 degrees F. This is five times the temperature, meaning it takes 5 times the energy to convert steel instead of plastic. Lower temperatures equates to lower costs of production.
New Lower Weight Materials
The average plastic weighs just 20% of the average metal product. Many plastics have exceptional weight to strength ratios, meaning that for the weight of the product they are very strong. This low weight means much less raw materials and less impact on the environment if using plastics over metals. This results in lower cost to manufacture parts from plastics over metal.
For instance, new UV grades of HDPE or High Density Polyethylene are very light, with a density of just .96, so light it floats in water. And yet, this new UV grade of HDPE is a workhorse in the plastic market, and is used to replace wood and metals in outdoor furniture.
New Detectable Materials For Food Contact Approved
Most Performance Plastic materials were engineered to be food contact compliant, and in most cases FDA approved for food contact. With the increase in food recalls, finding the proper materials to ensure that our foods are safe is imperative. Materials like Acetal Copolymer, Acetal Homopolymer, Nylon, Ultem 1000 and Victrex 450g PEEK are all FDA approved for direct food contact.
Which Performance Plastic Will Work The Best
Here are some new performance plastic material grades that include additives to make these materials detectable during food processing. These newly released detectable products include Tecaform AH UD (copolymer acetal base), Tecapeek UD Blue (PEEK based) and Hydex 4101 UD Blue PBT – Polyester base). Each of these new performance plastic materials comes in Blue color to be detected by color sensors during food processing. The “UD” portion allows these materials to be detected by X-Ray and Metal Detection scanners in food processing production lines. Using these new detectable performance plastic materials in food processing plants can help to eliminate food contamination issues and massive food recalls.
Recent Rising Costs Of Transportation
Changes in transportation rules and regulations since 2018 have made shipping raw materials significantly more expensive. Weight, size restrictions and surcharges for longer packages have more than doubled in the last year.
This has made one of the most expensive components of materials reaching the marketplace is transportation costs, and over the last several years the costs of moving materials across the country has skyrocketed. Metals are heavy, and this weight makes many items very expensive to transport.
Each step in the production of a finished good generally involves shipping to the next step. Raw material converted into base material, then base material converted into usable shape. Later this shape is turned into a component or part. Each time there is a conversion, there normally is shipping to the next processor. Metal weight can limit the amount of metal that can be moved at one time, where plastics can ship up to five times more product per truckload.
With performance plastics, often the conversion in small factories that can be located near final assembly of components limits the amount of shipping of plastic parts. Also, due to the light weight of plastics, trucks can hold up to five times the amount of plastic over metals for shipping. Many plastic parts are made very close to where they will be consumed, cutting logistics fees. This five times the weight also translates to five times higher cost to ship metals. This reduction of transportation costs moves more profit to the bottom line.
New Performance Plastic Materials Eliminate Need For Lubrication
Often, on large metal parts or assemblies, grease ports are added to make lubricating the metal parts easy. Metal on metal parts will wear out very quickly, and therefore require regular service and lubrication.
Newly released performance plastic materials have made lubrication obsolete. One such material is a new compounded Nylon material, called Nylatech PVM has FDA approved oil additives. This new Cast Nylon material runs well for extended periods without external lubrication. This material runs quieter and smoother than previously used metal parts due to a much lower coefficient of friction, and requires no regular maintenance.
Another new grade of Performance Plastic material that is rated as ‘self-lubricating’, and have excellent wear resistance is Lub-X UHMW, which now makes curves in bottling plants move smoother, quieter and require no lubrication. These long wearing and high strength materials outperform most other substrate for low cost, high performance, low weight and self lubrication.
Each of these plastic advantages yield cost savings and long product life. Along with these new areas of advantage, Performance Plastics are 100% recyclable, and can be reprocessed into high strength parts again and again. The plastic recycling industry is still in its infancy, and as it becomes more adept at recycling and reusing valuable plastic materials, our planet and our pocket books will benefit.
all surfaces and having food safe cutting stations. At the hub of all the food preparation is the cutting surfaces used to cut food. NSF and FDA have guidelines for keeping food preparation areas clean, and one main component is the cutting board. At home, most people cut some food for dinner and then scrub the cutting board they used before putting it away. In busy restaurants the cutting boards are used constantly throughout the day. During the slow times, kitchen staff takes time to clean. Industrial Plastic Supply, Inc. is proud to supply the premium certified HDPE materials designed for restaurant cutting surfaces. 
