Open-mesh, flat wire conveyor belts are a mainstay of food and beverage processing lines, where drainage, airflow and washdown access matter as much as reliable product transport. Within the Wire Belt range available in New Zealand is the Honeycomb Conveyor Belt, also known as flat wire belting, one of the most broadly applicable options.
Its open, low-profile construction supports washing, drying, cooling, baking and general transfer duties across a single belt type, making it a practical choice for processors looking to standardise belting across multiple stages of a production line. This article looks at how the Honeycomb belt is constructed, where it fits within the wider Wire Belt range, and what a recent sanitation tunnel project demonstrates about its performance under washdown conditions.
Wire Belt Honeycomb
What Is the Honeycomb Conveyor Belt?
The Honeycomb belt is constructed from formed flat wire strips joined by cross rods, creating a hexagonal, open-mesh pattern with a high strength-to-weight ratio. Unlike friction-driven mesh belts, Honeycomb belts run on a positive sprocket drive, which keeps the belt accurately tracked along its full length and reduces the slippage-related wear that can affect friction-driven alternatives — particularly useful on longer runs or inclined sections.
The range is built to established pitch and cross-rod specifications, covering both European Standard (ES001 to ES015) and Imperial Standard (IS101A to IS109) configurations. This allows a Honeycomb belt to be matched to existing sprockets and frame dimensions during a like-for-like replacement, or specified against a known standard for a new installation. Material options span Grade 304 (1.4301) and 316 (1.4401) stainless steel for general food-grade and corrosive environments, 321 (1.4541) and 1.4828 for higher-temperature duty, and mild steel or galvanised mild steel where stainless steel is not required.
How Honeycomb Compares to Flat-Flex®
Honeycomb sits alongside Flat-Flex® as one of the most widely used belts in the Wire Belt range, but the two serve slightly different purposes. Flat-Flex® offers up to 86% open area on a balanced-weave construction and is often the default choice for direct product contact in baking, cooling and freezing. Honeycomb’s flat wire, positive-drive construction is better suited to applications where belt tracking accuracy and structural rigidity matter more than maximum open area — such as washdown conveyors, drainage tables, and lines handling heavier or less uniform loads. In practice, many sites use both: Flat-Flex® for direct product transport, and Honeycomb for drainage, transfer or washdown-area conveyors within the same line.
Wire Belt Honeycomb Duplex
Applications Across Processing Stages
The open structure of the Honeycomb belt suits any process where liquid needs to drain away or air needs to circulate around the product. Typical applications include washing and drying of fresh produce, cooling and freezing tunnels, baking and proofing, breading and coating lines, canning and pasteurisation, and general packaging or sorting conveyors.
Because the same belt type can be specified across washing, cooling, drying and transfer stages, processors can reduce the number of different belt profiles, spare sprockets and drive components held across a site — a practical benefit for maintenance teams managing multi-stage lines, and for procurement teams looking to consolidate spares inventory. Across dairy, meat, seafood and horticultural processing in New Zealand, these characteristics make Honeycomb a common choice for washing lines ahead of packing, and for drainage conveyors feeding into freezing tunnels.
Duplex Honeycomb for Heavier Loads
Where a standard Honeycomb belt’s load rating is insufficient, for example, with heavier product, larger trays or bins, or accumulation conveyors, Wire Belt’s Duplex Honeycomb variant provides additional strength while retaining the same open-mesh drainage and airflow characteristics. Duplex Honeycomb is built for heavy-load applications, giving specifiers an upgrade path within the same belt family rather than a switch to an entirely different conveyor type. This is a useful option where a line is being redesigned for higher throughput or heavier product formats but the existing frame, drive and washdown infrastructure should be retained.
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Washdown Performance: A Sanitation Tunnel Case Study
Hygienic washdown is one of the more demanding environments for conveyor belting, since belts must withstand repeated high-pressure cleaning cycles while continuing to track accurately. Wire Belt’s Honeycomb belt was specified for a sanitation tunnel project for Brabantia, a Dutch manufacturer, where bin bodies pass through a dedicated washing and sanitising line.
The project followed unsuccessful attempts with belts from other suppliers, which suffered from misalignment, jumping and tracking problems within the washdown environment. The Honeycomb belt’s positive-drive design resolved these issues, and Chris van den Heuvel of Brabantia credited Wire Belt’s technical support and lead times as key factors in the project’s success.
For New Zealand processors running daily or multi-shift sanitation cycles, common across dairy, meat and seafood processing, this kind of reference is directly relevant. It demonstrates that the belt’s tracking and structural design hold up under sustained washdown pressure, not just standard production wear, which is often the point at which lower-specification belting begins to fail.
Versatility Beyond Food Processing
The same open design that supports drainage and hygiene in food applications has also proven effective in less obvious settings. Wire Belt cites an aggregate bagging application where Honeycomb belts replaced rubber belting, reducing maintenance through the belt’s open-design drainage, and a candle-filling line operating continuously at temperatures up to 400°C, illustrating the range of material grades available for high-temperature duty.
While most APS customers will be specifying Honeycomb for food, dairy or beverage applications, these examples are a useful indicator of the belt’s durability and the breadth of material options available when an application moves outside standard food-grade temperature ranges.
Specifying a Honeycomb Belt
Specifying the right Honeycomb configuration involves matching belt pitch and cross-rod spacing to existing sprockets — using the ES or IS series as a reference point — selecting a material grade appropriate to the operating temperature and cleaning chemicals in use, and confirming whether the standard or Duplex construction is needed for the expected load.
As the exclusive New Zealand agent for Wire Belt, Advanced Packaging Systems provides supply, specification support and local distribution from Auckland. For processors reviewing belt options as part of a new line, a washdown-area upgrade, or a like-for-like replacement, APS can advise on the most suitable Honeycomb configuration for the application. Contact APS.
