Rubber Flooring in Kitchens and Restaurants

I recently had a customer of mine who was experiencing some troubles with installing recycled rubber flooring. Their troubles were due to their local Board of Health not having seen or worked with recycled rubber flooring in the past. Most of my customers who install recycled rubber flooring never have this problem since rubber is commonly accepted as suitable flooring in the food service sector however for some reason their inspector was being resistant. So Since I had to write a letter to their board of health, I thought I would post my initial draft so everyone could see why I believe rubber flooring is fine for use in the kitchen / restaurant settings. I would like to point out that before I sent the letter, I did rewrite it since I was probably a little to “forward” initially however I thought it would be a little more fun to show the first draft since its a little less PC than what I would ever send out.

Let me start by saying I personally don’t understand why this is an issue since this has never been an issue before in any market we serve across the country, however I will do my best to at least help shed some more light on the situation as to why our flooring is fine for use in restaurants. First let me start by saying that it is my understanding that the issue in question by the board of health is that they are worried that recycled rubber flooring somehow harbors bacterial growth more so than the average flooring. To help dispel that notion I will start by talking briefly about what I know about bacterial growth and then follow that by explaining how the flooring is constructed.

In order for bacteria to grow or any living thing for that matter, a few things are required. First of all a food source is needed and second of all a water source is needed. If those two things are present in an environment, certain organisms could grow. What is then needed for them to grow is for them to be there initially (they get to where they are via a carrier typically, i.e. person, animal, etc.) and to then have the outside environmental factors be advantageous for growth. For example some bacteria prefer temperate climates and high humidity; others prefer hot temperatures, acidic environments, and so on. Most bacterial growth that the board of health should be worried about in a food service environment is your typical food borne pathogens such as e coli, listeria, salmonella, etc. Now what should be looked at in theory is whether or not recycled rubber flooring provides a more advantageous environment for those pathogens to grow than other flooring options commonly used in food service environments.

To help analyze this, I will break down the construction of recycled rubber flooring. First of all let me explain that our rubber flooring is made up of two primary components. The first component is SBR (styrene butadiene rubber) which is commonly used in making tires and those little black rubber stoppers you see in chemical and food science labs. The reason this type of rubber is used for those purposes is because it is very stable, durable, does not react with most chemicals, and provides no known nutritional qualities to any living organism. This is partially why in the early 1990’s before the birth of the recycled rubber tire industry, there were over a billion tires in landfills and no hope for them to decay or degrade for thousands of years since no living organism known to man feeds off of them. That is also why rubber is used in food service mats. Due to that fact, I think it is safe to assume that the SBR rubber in our flooring provides a no more advantageous environment for growth than other types of flooring. In fact I think you could argue that wood flooring which is found in many restaurants is worse because wood is organic and can be a food source for pathogens.

That being said, wood is actually fine to use as well in food service environments since it is often coated with a polyurethane sealer to prevent the wood from being openly exposed. That brings me to the second component used in making our rubber flooring. We also use a polyurethane binder to bind the rubber together and this binder is very similar to the kind used on wood flooring as a sealer. The reason it is used is just like why rubber is used. It is not a food source for any known bacteria and therefore does not degrade over time. What all this means essentially is that there is nothing in our flooring for bacteria to feed off of. Our rubber flooring is therefore no more dangerous to the touch than say walking barefoot on a sealed wooden floor while holding a tire at the same time. Would I eat off of it like I would a plate? No, but I wouldn’t eat off of a wood floor, ceramic floor, etc. either. That is why it is used as flooring.

Now that we have discussed the components in the flooring, I think the last major thing to touch upon is whether the construction method causes an environment more advantageous for bacteria growth. I realize that on the surface it appears somewhat porous but I would like to add that it is actually not. Behind every open pore you see on the surface, is more rubber. This is because the rubber and binder mixture is highly compressed in our flooring (something like 40 tons of pressure). That is also why water will not pass through it no matter how long you wait. Now I guess it would also be reasonable to argue that the pores allow places for water, crumbs and other potential food sources to sit down into. But then you have to realize how many restaurants have carpet installed in them. Carpet is much more susceptible to crumbs getting embedded into it and holds water for much longer than our flooring. If you care to try it, I recommend damp mopping, ceramic tile, our rubber flooring, and carpet and then seeing how long it takes for each to dry. What you will notice is that the rubber flooring and ceramic tile will appear and feel dry at roughly the same time while the carpet will take much longer to dry.

Our rubber flooring has been used many times in the food service environment and we have not received one complaint yet over the application being not suited for our type of flooring. It has been used in kitchens, cafeterias, lunch rooms, restaurants; even my own boss has it in his kitchen. We will also continue to sell to the food service environment going forward whether you allow this particular job or not because frankly we trust our product and are not worried about any liability issues that could arise in a food service environment any more so than say a weight room environment. Any flooring (carpet, ceramic tile, wood, etc) you have ever walked on in your life could harbor bacterial growth provided you kept it unclean, wet, and had a food source for the pathogens to feed off of. That is why when our flooring is used in a food service environment, we recommend a healthy cleaning regimen just the same as you would use on any other flooring. This includes vacuuming to remove loose impediments like crumbs which could be a food source, and daily damp mopping with a mild soap and water solution to ensure a clean floor. In addition, all restaurants should perform an occasional disinfecting of the flooring no matter what kind of flooring you use and that is why we also recommend an occasional wet moping with a water and alcohol solution to kill any possible microbes not visible to the naked eye. In the end though I guess the question should be, is our flooring any more susceptible to harboring bacterial growth than other types of flooring? Based on my past experiences and feedback I have received, I would say the answer is no, it is not more susceptible.


I hope that has been informative and I think you can see why I chose to edit it before I sent it, but you will have to admit, at least I am passionate.