Food grade explained
If it dripped, where would it land?
That single question decides whether a lubricant on your line has to be NSF H1 registered. Here is how food grade lubrication actually works.
Start here
Every factory has only five things that need lubricant.
Whatever you make, it comes down to these. Learn them and you can read any plant.
1 · Bearings
Anything that spins — motors, fans, rollers, conveyor pulleys, mixers. Take grease. Every plant has hundreds.
2 · Gearboxes
A sealed box of gears bolted to every motor. Takes gear oil, drained and replaced periodically.
3 · Chains
Links dragging a load — oven chains, conveyor chains, trolley washers. Take chain oil, which burns off in ovens.
4 · Hydraulics
Anything that pushes, lifts or clamps. Takes hydraulic oil. This is where a leak becomes a recall.
5 · Open surfaces
Threads, slides, moulds, seals, valve stems. Nothing holds the lubricant in, so contamination risk is highest here.
That's the whole list
Once you can spot these five, you can walk any production line and know what needs what.
The rule
Stand at any machine and look up.
If a drip from that bearing would land on food, it must be H1. If it sits below the product, inside a sealed gearbox, or in another room, H2 is legally acceptable.
Zone 1 — H1 mandatory
Above or beside open product. Mixers, sheeters, oven chains, cooling conveyors, fillers.
Zone 2 — H1 preferred
Enclosed but nearby. Sealed gearboxes, motors mounted under the line.
Zone 3 — H2 acceptable
A separate room entirely. Compressor house, workshop, forklifts, boiler room.
Best practice
The best plants use H1 everywhere.
Not because the rules demand it. Because the moment there are two grease guns in the building — one H1 and one H2 — someone eventually picks up the wrong one at two in the morning. One grease, one gun, no mistakes.