From product flow to wastewater treatment, the biggest design decisions happen long before construction begins.

When Nanak Foods set out to build its new manufacturing facility in Surrey, B.C., the company wasn’t starting with an empty lot. It inherited a building created for the previous owner, one that had already received development approval but wasn’t designed for a highly specialized food processing operation.
Starting over would have delayed the project by as much as 10 months. Instead, the project team reshaped the existing design around Nanak’s production requirements while preserving the original approvals. That meant rethinking everything from equipment placement and utilities to future expansion before detailed construction proceeded.
Whether building new, expanding or repurposing an existing facility, F&B manufacturers face the same challenge: getting the important decisions right before construction starts. It’s easy to focus on processing lines, automation or the latest refrigeration technology but those aren’t usually the decisions that determine whether a facility performs well for the next 20 years.
As Joshua Gaglardi, founder and president of Orion Construction, explains it, “Trying to force a complex food manufacturing process into a building that was not designed for it creates challenges throughout design, construction and long-term operations.”
Orion Construction led the design-build work on the Nanak project, while Dennis Group drew on its experience designing and building food manufacturing facilities across North America to provide broader industry perspective.

Design the process before the building
The first conversations shouldn’t be about walls or floor plans. They should be about the business.
Before architects decide where walls, utilities or production rooms belong, manufacturers need to answer more fundamental questions. What products will they make? How much capacity will they need? How might automation, labour availability or customer demand change over the next decade?
Dennis Group emphasizes the importance of front-end planning. As the firm notes, “Investing in this planning upfront significantly reduces execution risk,” helping align production goals, infrastructure requirements and long-term business objectives before major commitments are made.
For food manufacturers, the building should support the production process, not dictate it. Understanding how ingredients, products, employees and materials will move through the facility should drive all design decisions. This approach shaped Orion’s work on the Nanak project from the outset. More than 500 pieces of equipment, each with its own specifications and service requirements, had to be coordinated before detailed design could proceed. That early work ensured utilities were properly sized and the facility could support the manufacturing process as intended.
Modern equipment can produce significantly more product within a smaller processing area. The challenge simply shifts to storage, logistics, material movement and utilities. Designers don’t just think about where equipment goes. They think about movement— of products, people, air and waste. Each one affects how safely and efficiently the plant operates.

Food safety starts with the layout
Some of the most effective food safety controls are built into the facility itself. Personnel flows, raw-to-ready product segregation, air-pressure relationships, drainage, utility routing and equipment accessibility all determine how easy a plant is to clean, maintain and operate safely. Poor decisions in these areas can be difficult and costly to correct after production begins.

Build for the business you’ll become
Designing for today’s production needs alone is one of the easiest ways to outgrow a facility because products evolve, packaging changes, automation advances, and consumer demand shifts. Leaving empty floor space isn’t enough. Utilities need room to grow, too, as well as support areas and infrastructure.
At Nanak, approx. 15,000-sq. ft. of open space was preserved for expanded or entirely new production lines. With industrial land in the Lower Mainland at a premium, that space could eliminate the need to purchase another property or construct a separate facility.
Dennis Group recommends a similar phased approach for utilities, allowing capacity to be added in modular steps as production grows rather than installing oversized systems at the outset.

Systems that matter most are often invisible
Ask visitors what they remember after touring a food plant and they’ll usually mention the production lines. Rarely will anyone talk about the mechanical room. The systems that determine how efficiently the plant operates are usually hidden behind walls, beneath floors or
on the roof. Refrigeration, HVAC, wastewater treatment, electrical infrastructure and process utilities don’t receive the same attention as production equipment, yet they influence operating costs every day.
At Nanak, the facility’s heat recovery equipment captures excess process heat and is reused to heat cleaning water and ancillary spaces. Its wastewater system allows treated water to be used for irrigation and outdoor cleaning. The company also selected a CO₂-based cooling system—a higher-cost option chosen for its environmental advantages and potential carbon credit incentives.
These investments weren’t made simply to make the building greener; they were made to make the business stronger.

Solve problems before construction begins
Digital modelling is changing the way food plants are designed. Orion used a building information modelling (BIM) system to place more than 500 pieces of equipment and co-ordinate them with the facility’s services and building components. The process identified more than 150 clashes between building systems, allowing conflicts to be resolved digitally instead of on the jobsite.

Don’t forget the neighbours
A food facility doesn’t operate in isolation. Truck traffic, odour control and site planning can all influence a facility’s relationship with the surrounding community.
A dispute involving Covered Bridge Potato Chips’ facility in Woodstock, N.B., is a reminder that a plant’s impact does not end at the property line. A group of residents has filed claims with the provincial Farm Practices Review Board alleging impacts from noise, odours and increased traffic. Covered Bridge has said the facility complies with municipal and provincial requirements and that it is taking steps to reduce noise and visual impacts on neighbouring properties. Whatever the outcome, the dispute illustrates why decisions made during planning can affect community relations.

“Trying to force a complex food manufacturing process into a building that was not designed for it creates challenges throughout design, construction and long-term operations.”
— Joshua Gaglardi, Orion Construction

The hardest questions come first

Sophisticated equipment and high-speed production lines often get the attention. But Dennis Group and Orion Construction argue that the real decisions happen earlier.
The best-performing plants aren’t necessarily the ones built the
fastest or the least expensively. They’re the ones where the hardest questions were asked before design began: How will the business grow? Where will products move? Can utilities expand? Will food safety be built into the layout instead of managed around it? Those aren’t construction questions. They’re business questions. And answering them early may be the smartest investment a food manufacturer makes.